Let’s face it; bookkeeping is the last thing that any small business owner wants or has time to do. But maintaining well-organized books and records is a crucial part of running a successful business, not to mention that it’s required by the IRS. Keeping up with the books year-round instead of scrambling to round up your records at tax time will not only help you monitor the progress of your business, but it will also make for a less taxing tax season.
Followings are just some suggestions. If you haven’t decided how to manage your receipts, this article should give you some ideas.
FOUR ONLINE TOOLS FOR FAST AND EASY BOOKKEEPING
Organize and securely store your records and automate bookkeeping with these user friendly and affordable online tools:
Shoeboxed: Mail your receipts and important records to Shoeboxed for scanning, data entry, and secure online organization and storage. From your online account, download Excel and CSV spreadsheets, PDF reports, and QuickBooks and Quicken files, and seamlessly export data to other web applications. Shoeboxed is an IRS-accepted electronic storage system, which means that you don’t have to keep the hard copies after processing, and even offers a free shred-and-recycle option.
Outright.com: Sync your Outright.com account with Shoeboxed, FreshBooks, PayPal, your bank account, and other sources to automate your bookkeeping. At tax time, Outright calculates quarterly estimated taxes, automatically populates your Schedule C, and even requests Form W-9 from contractors and freelancers and files Form 1099-MISC on their behalf.
FreshBooks: Use FreshBooks for fast, simple and professional-quality invoicing. Snag receipts directly from Shoeboxed to bill clients for expenses, keep track of overdue invoices, and automatically export paid invoices to Outright.com where income is tracked. Harvest is another excellent invoicing tool for small business owners.
Bill.com: Simplify your bill workflow with easy and affordable online bill management and payment tools from Bill.com.
Accounting for Dummies are basic accounting tips and tricks you can master in your business.
Accounting for dummies will show you with basic steps you can create financial information for your business. Please, visit other categories or search for the topic of interest at the left column.
First decision you need to make is whether you want your business be classified as cash-basis or accrual accounting. This is probably already confusing, but read on and I will explain.
In cash-basis accounting, you will record sales when the customer pays.
Ex: on May12th you sell $12,000. worth of books.
On June 12th you receive payment from your customer.
The sale of the books is recognized on June 12th, when the payment is received.
On the other side of the scale, your expenses are recorded when they are paid.
Ex: on May 10th you purchase $8000. worth of books.
On June 10th you pay your supplier for those books.
The purchase is recorded on June 10th, when you pay your supplier.
Cash-basis accounting is shied away from, because your financial statement will not give an actual picture of your company’s activities. It will only show you money coming into the business and money going out of the business.
In accrual accounting, the sales are recorded when they are made, regardless of when the customer pays and the expenses are recorded when they happen, regardless of when you pay them. This method gives a clear picture of your total yearly sales with a balance due from your customers as well as a clear picture of all your expenses and inventory purchased with a balance due to your suppliers.
Now that you have decided on which method of accounting system to use, lets talk about your team.
As a business owner the sooner you establish your team to help you reach your goals, the greater peace of mind you can have. Focus on your relationship with people such as your lawyer, banker, marketing expert, insurance company, and your accountant who will give you financial advise and minimize your tax liability. You also need a bookkeeper to look after your day to day recording of financial transactions.
Some business owners take on the task of bookkeeping themselves and soon only have time to do the bare minimum such as, payroll – employees have to be paid, paying suppliers and creating sales invoices. All these payroll, supplier and customer invoices and documents end up in a basket to be entered into an accounting software program at a later date. Well, you know what, that later day is far away and might never come. The best thing you can do for your business is hire a bookkeeper.
The bookkeeper will record every transaction that takes place with the following six basic types of suppliers or entities.
1- Customers who buy the products and services that the company sells.
2- Employees who provide services to the business and are paid wages and benefits such as, worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance, and medical and dental insurance.
3- Suppliers who provide items such as, products for resale, legal advise, utilities, gas, rent, telephone, computer and furniture.
4-Bankers or trust companies who loan money to the business, charge interest on the principal and are monthly payments are scheduled to pay off the loan.
5- Investors, the individuals that invest money in the business and expect the business to earn profit on the capital they invest.
6-Government, federal and provincial government that collect income tax, payroll tax, sales tax and property tax from the business.
It does not matter what size of business you have. You will be amazed at the amount of paper and transactions accumulate each month. Someone has to keep track, organize and record in order to be able to provide sound financial statements that the business owner can rely on and make good decisions.
As a business owner keep the following steps in mind when starting out or make a change if needed:
1- Make sure you have an accountant/bookkeeper as part of your start-up team.
2- With the help of you accountant/bookkeeper, choose a software to keep track of your business transactions.
3- Open a business bank account and keep it totally separate from your personal account.
4- Get a business credit card or line of credit and keep solely for business use.
5- Set up your office with desk, computer, filing cabinet and start-up office supplier. Make sure it’s user friendly for yourself and your bookkeeper. Situate the computer, mouse, calculator, and telephone in easy reach, so after working 8 hours you or your bookkeeper don’t get a soar neck or back.
6- Invest in office trays and label them to communicate to your bookkeeper as to where the documents are being kept. Once or twice a week when your bookkeeper comes, they know exactly where to go to get the information needed. No time wasted.
The most time consuming part of keeping books is data entry. Once you have a stack of receipts, bills, invoices, or even business cards you need to input them into an accounting software. (Simply Accounting, Quick Books, BasicBooks for Linux, or good old simple spread sheet).
To keep the papers organised you can get one of these simple and practical file folder holders. They can be easily moved around and won’t hide away deep in the giant filing cabinet. A modern way of organizing documents and even business cards will be explained after the video clips.
Steps to organizing your papers:
On each receipt circle, date and method of payment, as well as a small note explaining what it is. A month from now you may not remeber the purchase but the note will be a life saver.
Separate them into how you paid for them. Example: debit card, visa card or check.
Take each stack and organize them based on date.
Now the papers are ready to be entered into your accounting package.
There is a short YouTube clip that you can watch here:
Modern Document Organization:
To satisfy my curiosity I tried to scan and store my documents online. I chose Shoeboxed.com as they provides tools to take a photo of receipts and store online. I realized that I can also scan and organize business cards. They offer a 30 day, 50 receipts or biz cards free trial. Once you apply to take it for a test drive you would be given a username and a password. Their system is extremely user friendly. If you have an iPhone, I understand that they have an app for it. I have a Samsung Android Smart Phone which I am going to use. It has a 5 mega pixel camera which is well suited for this task. I am going to summarize the steps on how to scan / photo document so later on you can consider getting rid of the paper receipts! You can also mail in the documents in a prepaid envelop and they will scan it for you.
Sign up for a free account at their website.
Use your Smart phone or your camera to take a picture of one of your receipts. A bright surrounding and stable camera provides a sharp image. You can view these images online once uploaded. You can also use your scanner if you want to.
Start your Gmail program (Any other email clients will work as well) on your mobile phone and attach the picture you took and send it away to their email address. Include a subject line and it would help you remember the details. The whole process is fast and convenient.
You would receive a confirmation email that they did receive your email and would get processed within one business day.
Repeat the same steps for other invoices, bills, and business cards.
Upon logging into your account, you can view the receipts and edit the fields if you want to. Here is how it looks like (Click on it to see a larger version):
Once I took a picture of an invoice from almost a 45 degree angle (I mean my Smart Phone camera not exactly on top of the document, but 45 degree tilted). Shoeboxed was still able to recognize its data which is impressive. (To speed up loading this webpage I have placed a mini version of the image, click on it to see it in full size)
You can add to the categories and link your invoices to it. This allows for more flexibility and customize it to the way your business operates. The image below gives you an idea:
I like to try it further more to get a better understanding of its features and keep you updated. Meanwhile go to their site and sign up for a free trial. Nothing is better than hands on experience. You will find it extremely simple to use. Give Shoeboxed.com a try, get modernized now!
Seeking a reliable solution for your scanned bills? It cannot be denied that receipt scanning has given a great deal of ease in the way we monitor our expenses but keep it alone at that and you'll not go further. The thing is, scanned data and scanning software generally go together; and one thing will not operate with as much value when the other is absent.
The final product of an accounting system are financial reports. The standard system to help us understand the business transactions are defined through a T Account. Accounting system consists of various elements like debits/credits, double-entry accounting, and chart of accounts.
The full explanation of these terms are included in a PDF file called T Accounts for Dummies. It also covers other basic accounting topics and resources.
Page 104 of Fundamental Accounting Principles Text Book (Volume 1 by Larson Jensen) defines T-Accounts as: A simple characterization of an account form used as a helpful tool in showing the effects of transactions on specific accounts.
