Let's Start to Make Things Easier!
This is the second blog on our series, in this we look at what you can do to make it easier to keep your records for your accounts and how that will help you now and in future.
Keeping good quality records is essential for your business. You need to make this as easier as possible to make sure you do it all the time.
There are key things that we think are good practice for any business to do regardless of it size. That is good fundamental steps that will make your life easier. These are recommendations that we will make to you when we start to work with you and they are made to make it easier for you to keep good quality records for your accounts.
These are the systems that everything else will flow from. If you do not have a system to adequately keep your records and in a manner that we can work with, we will find it difficult to be your accountants.
These are fundamental things for your business.
You need to get the fundamentals right before you can start to move forward. These are so fundamental to your future success and making the most of your time that we need to insist that they are in place, so we can help you.
Whatever stage of the business cycle you are currently at, you need to have a simple reliable way to keep your records. That is simple and repeatable. As your team grows it can also be done by anyone as they go about their daily routine. It will be done without thinking and will develop into a good habit.
What software should you choose Quickbooks or Xero?
The first step is to start to keep your records in an online bookkeeping software such as Xero or Quickbooks. We are happy to work with either software and really do not have a preference, if we were to say Xero is nicer to look at and is maybe easier to us and has a larger eco-system for software that you can use in conjunction with it.
The key point is that you choose one and you connect your bank account to the software using a secure login. This will bring all of your bank statements into the software each day so we can keep your books and accounts up to date.
It will give you a structure and system to make it easier to keep your records and share with us. The cost of this will be in the region of about £30 per month plus vat, and it is well worth the investment of time and money to set this up.
Also consider Receipt Bank to help manage the paperwork and expenses.
The next step up that we would recommend is to have a software to keep digital copies of the invoices and receipts that you will have. Receipt Bank is out favourite for doing this. It can connect to either Xero or Quickbooks and attach digital copies of the receipts to the accounts.
This is very helpful if you have any queries when looking through the accounts. it is also necessary to keep proof of any vat claimed back, so it is nice and neat and all in the software.
Again, we are big fans of Receipt Bank and the cost for this can be between £10 and £40 per month plus vat depending on what features you need.
There are a number of other software that we may recommend to you, but these are the core that we will advise that you take. To give you the best advice about your business and finances we need to have your work up to date and complete.
This is the second article on how to run a better business. Please contact us if you need help setting up Quickbooks, Xero or Receipt Bank for your business.