Tweak Your Biz » Finance » Top Ten Tips For Managing Your Books

Top Ten Tips For Managing Your Books

by helencousins on September 2nd, 2011
19 Comments



When it comes to your accountant, time really is money. The more you can do yourself to really reduce the workload for your accountant, the less time your accountant will have to spend on your accounts, and you may be able to negotiate a reduction on your fee. Alternatively, and preferably, your accountant may be able to divert attention from recording history and focus instead on helping you to shape your financial future. In the last post, we looked at getting the most from your accountant. The tips below will help you to achieve that, and more importantly, put you in control of the paperwork.

Submerged in paperwork?Submerged in paperwork?

  1. “Divide and conquer” really works for paperwork. This applies to splitting up, (i.e. filing), both the paperwork itself and to the time devoted to getting your paperwork in order. “A little and often” makes the chore of paperwork more palatable.
  2. Lever arch files are good for storing invoices, bank statements etc. and they stack neatly on a shelf. You can label the back of the folders to make document retrieval easy.
  3. Pick a typically quiet time in your working week and make a dairy date with yourself to “do the books” at that time every week.
  4. File paperwork regularly. If you receive invoices digitally, make sure you have separate folders for these on your computer and save files as soon as you receive them, rather than let them languish in your inbox.
  5. Keep separate files for everything, (e.g. purchases invoices separate from sales, bank statements filed chronologically, and each bank account filed separately), or use appropriate file dividers rather than separate files if you do not have a lot of paperwork. File dividers can come with either pre-printed tabs – e.g. month – or plain for you to assign your own label.
  6. For dishonest employees, cash is one of the most desirable things in your business. So, control your cash, balance your tills at least daily, and do not take money out of your own tills as it sets a bad example to your employees, as well as having implications for the accuracy of your records.
  7. Give your accountant everything required to prepare your accounts on day one. It takes your accountant valuable time to look for something that isn’t there, remember time is money… Ask your accountant for a checklist, so that you can deliver everything that your accountant needs.
  8. Use a proprietary bookkeeping software package. Spreadsheets are not really suitable for keeping accounting information in, as it is too easy to make errors in formulae.  Ask your accountant for advice one the best software package, and advice on where to find training. Most county enterprise boards offer training in realtion to bookeeping. Book-keeping will be so much easier when you know what you are doing and why!
  9. Don’t expect a fee reduction without agreeing in advance the extra work you will do with your accountant.  Of course, you must actually deliver on the promises you make to your accountant to avail of the agreed fee reduction.
  10. If all else fails… at least keep everything relating to your accounts in one place, (“the big box approach”), and employ a good bookkeeper.

What tips do you have for keeping on top of your books?



Category: Accountancy

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The Author:

Helen Cousins, a chartered accountant by profession, is a business mentor, trainer and consultant for a wide range of Irish SMEs, often working under the auspices of state agencies via her company Xcel Business Solutions. In a successful career spanning more than 25 years, Helen worked in accountancy practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and worked in Financial Controller and senior management positions in manufacturing industry, before starting her own consultancy for small businesses. Helen is also a self catering entrepreneur, operating her own self catering holiday home business in Wexford. She is a director and former Chair of the Irish Self Catering Federation, and she works closely with the tourist industry in Ireland. http://xbs.ie

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  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Hi Helen, there is lots of advice in here that I need take on board, I particularly like what you said about giving your accountant everything that he or she needs on day one. I’m afraid I’ve been guilty in the past of not doing so. Great post, thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.garrendennylane.ie/blog Lorna

    I have to admit I’m our accountant’s worst nightmare – have been attempting the ‘putting everything in a file/litle and often’ approach and it has been working to a point. I think we might be going back to the ‘everything in a big box and hand it to the bookkeeper’

    Good post, I found what you said about the spreadsheets interesting as that is what our current accountant has us putting the data on.

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    It’s a pain for business owners to have to keep rooting for stuff & you end up paying for it by being labelled “messy” by the acountant. Hours of futility are charged to your account & your accounts are priced accordingly. Accountants could help themselves & their clients by giving checklists to all clients though. For the record, I hate doing the books for my own business! Thanks Niall
    ~ Helen

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    Outsourcing to (or even employing) a good bookkeeper can be very cost effective. They will devote time to tracking down missing invoices, making sure you claim all your VAT back, ensure you are tax compliant, get the money in and out efficiently - no more lost weekends! This frees business owners up to work on the business – what they are best at! 
    I expect people, (even accountants), to challenge me on the spreadsheet point. Spreadsheets are commonly used, can cause serious errors, and are not giving valuable info to the client in most cases.  
    I did a lot of work with the small business unit of a big 4 accountancy firm and client spreadsheets were a nightmare. For instance – a chap who likes everything in order inserts 2 rows to pop in one missing invoice. Without boring you with a step by step – he updated the formula to add everything up. The result? All of the invoices that came before the inserted invoice were not added into totals. He used those totals to calculate his VAT payable and made an incorrect VAT return. He seriously underpaid his VAT as a result & was incredulous that he had made a mistake, because he had used a spreadsheet. He thought he had removed the potential for error…
    I won’t go on – it could be another blog post! Actually it will :)
    Thanks Lorna.
    ~Helen

  • http://www.smartsolutions.ie/blog/ Elaine Rogers

    Great timely piece Helen. Spreadsheets burned me badly a couple of years ago when I was relying on them for my debtors. Indeed I was using an accs package to some degree but relying on spreadsheets too much (because I am good with them). I was so good, I missed invoicing 2 clients for work done. 1000 euro was finally retrieved the following year (because I have great clients) but I agree about relying on spreadsheets.

    Little and often, I am a firm believer, but I don’t do it!!! I leave everything for a couple of months, and then because I do have a great filing system, and am highly organised, blitz everything in half a day.

    Book-keeping, I am beginning to think it is a good idea to outsource a couple of hours a week/month, depending on the business, because like you say, it gives back valuable time to the business owner, if even just their Saturday morning

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    Some good points there Elaine  – a nice addition to the post. Thank you,
    ~ Helen

  • http://www.ecoevolution.ie Mary Gethings

    When I started the business I was very lucky to be introduced to an excellent accountant who is also a great business advisor. He recommended a bookkeeping software package and showed me the basics I needed to know to get started and then over time he went through it in greater detail. I would be completely lost without it.

    I am definitely going to start using lever arch files for my paperwork. At present I am putting invoices etc into files in a filing cabinet but I find over time they get mixed up and completely out of order. I receive a lot of invoices digitally but I have to admit at times I don’t save them immediately. Days later I have to trawl through my inbox looking for them. A real headache and a waste of time.

    I totally agree with your comment about speadsheets Helen. I would highly recommend a bookkeeping software package as it gives detailed information on how the business is doing at the press of a button.

    An excellent post Helen which has been added to my favourites for future reference.

  • Prashant

    Spreadsheets are no longer advisable. Even desktop accounting software is passe. The best solution for small businesses would be to go for an online accounting software like the one we offer at Zoho: Zoho Books. There are numerous benefits to move your accounting to web; you need not worry about backup, it is accessible anywhere and anytime; your accountant can just login to the service and review your transactions online and lot more.

  • Prashant

    Spreadsheets are no longer advisable. Even desktop accounting software is passe. The best solution for small businesses would be to go for an online accounting software like the one we offer at Zoho: Zoho Books. There are numerous benefits to move your accounting to web; you need not worry about backup, it is accessible anywhere and anytime; your accountant can just login to the service and review your transactions online and lot more.

  • Prashant

    Spreadsheets are no longer advisable. Even desktop accounting software is passe. The best solution for small businesses would be to go for an online accounting software like the one we offer at Zoho: Zoho Books. There are numerous benefits to move your accounting to web; you need not worry about backup, it is accessible anywhere and anytime; your accountant can just login to the service and review your transactions online and lot more.

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    The voice of experience speaks volumes! Thanks for adding to the post Mary.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=622376023 Jennifer Dunn Escalona

    Great tips! To avoid the “big box” approach (and the huge invoice from my accountant that goes with it) I use Outright.com in conjunction with Shoeboxed. Outright pulls all my info in from my bank accounts (full disclosure: I work with them) while Shoeboxed (which I don’t work with but love, love, love) is a real paperwork saver. They send you a big blue envelope every month that allows you to send in your receipts by mail. They then digitize your receipts and export them into your Outright account so your expenses are accounted for and anybody who needs to see your receipts can log in and see them digitally. It works wonders for eliminating the shoe box, hence the name!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Aramante-R-T-Browne/1300713143 Aramante R T Browne

    Bank statements, credit card statements provide the bulk of your book keeping needs so concentrate on the non documented like cash transactions use a simple cash management software like CashDispatcher which does require extensive training to book all cash transfer, cash transactions or cash deposits.  For a business with a POS software system cash transactions can be paid via most POS systems however if the transaction amount is higher than cash in drawer this is where CashDispatcher is indispensable.

  • Anonymous

    Confidence is the key to any business relationship, double bookkeeping services because they are giving all the financial details of your business. I have a high level of confidence in both my advisors, on the basis of their reputation and my experience working with them to date.
    bookkeeping service

  • http://www.waterproof-camera.us waterproof camera

    you surely have good experience in accountant and management , cause you wrote very excellent and all of them are very good tips ….. love to read your post :)

  • http://twitter.com/xcelbusiness Helen Cousins

    Why, thank you ;) ~Helen

  • http://www.handylocals.com.au/listing/guide/bookkeeping Bookkeeping Ransome

    ..it was so fantastic

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  • http://www.jankovicllc.com/ online bookkeeping

    Let me tell you that online services work on the principle of convenience and there will be no difficulty for business owners regarding these services. At present, online bookkeeping services execute very smoothly. Importance of internet cannot be neglected in the present age because it has created too many facilities for modern people.

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