My Bookkeeping Online Blog

Running your own business is challenging enough, without the bookkeeping getting in the way. Believe it or not, bookkeeping does not need to be the stressful; challenging nightmare that it is often perceived to be. Here are my 5 top tips:

1. Use a good accountant – they will set you on the right track, tell you what needs to be done immediately and what can wait, advise on appropriate software, and get the relevant legal requirements set up, leaving you to focus on commercial matters.
2. Start as you mean to go on – bookkeeping is mostly about being organised and being up to date. A little bit every day or every week will mean that problems don’t have a chance to build up.
3. Pick the right software – I would start with a simple product that enables you to get the job done as quickly as possible.
4. Don’t grapple with a computerised purchase ledger – maintaining a purchase ledger on accounting software is tricky, it will soak up valuable time, and the chances are that you will get some part of it wrong. I strongly recommend using a good, old fashioned paper system to keep simple control over your suppler invoices. You will find an example in the support library.  
5. Use online banking – this is a bit of a soap box regular for me. If you want to keep your bookkeeping simple and save lots of time, use online banking for the following reasons:

• A growing number of accounting products (including My Bookkeeping Online) support the import of CSV files downloaded from online banking, meaning you can import in seconds what would take hours to input manually AND
• When you make payments using online banking, the supplier name appears in the narrative box of the bank statement. Thus you are immediately saving at least one step in the bookkeeping process. Why? Because the alternative is that you write a cheque and as a result, only the cheque number appears on the bank statement. Thus you need to refer to the cheque stub to get the supplier name...assuming of course you have remembered to fill the cheque stub in...

The most important of the 5? Easy. Get a good accountant, who can provide you with the advice you need to get going. 

Categories:Bookkeeping, Financial, My Bookkeeping Online, Running a Business from Home, Small Business Help, Start ups, Working From Home