Bookkeeping doesn’t have to be completely awful. It can be easy. Yes, trust us… it really can! First of all you need to use a good and easy system to maintain your business accounts. After a lot of research and testing we recommend all our clients to switch to either KashFlow or Xero and use those systems to do the bookkeeping online.
Secondly, it’s all about the process and self-discipline. Keep your books up to date and avoid piles of receipts and invoices stacking up in the corner. Tackling books a little and often would reduce your fear and overwhelm when dealing with it. You can also employ an accountant to keep an eye on your records. This will be much cheaper than getting them to do it all for you, but you won’t have to fear making a mistake and being fined by the “tax people”.
Finally, realise why you are doing it. Bookkeeping is a wonderful practice helping you as a business owner understand where you need to reduce the expenses and how you can gain more profit. Bookkeeping is a core area of your business, it’s the blood pressure measurements of your cash flow lifeblood. If you don’t do it regularly you may miss the warning signals of your business running out of cash. As a solopreneur coach or consultant you would really want to avoid that at all costs!
Here are our useful tips on how to deal with your business bookkeeping:

• Your bookkeeping will be more effective if you have a system that can quickly analyse the financial transaction of your company. You will then see the “large picture” behind the numbers and reconciliation.
• Keep you offline books and registers in either invoice number or date order, rather than entering some in invoice number and some in date order. Try to keep your personal expenses separate from your business expenses at all times. Be consistent with the way you decided to do your bookkeeping.
• Follow a check-off list whether you employ payroll services or you are preparing payroll tax returns by yourself. Keeping a good due date reminders will be the best idea in order to file and pay the taxes on time.
• Keep good records. If your records are poorly maintained, you will not be able to understand the expenses and the income in the past and in the future. You will be unable to decide on important decisions like investment, marketing or hiring staff. This creates massive chaos in your business planning!
• Request bank statement with month end cut off date. This will save your time while reconciling your records with the bank statement every month.
• Establish a systematic practice of monitoring transactions on a regular basis (daily or weekly). This will avoid the small mistakes, lost receipts or the unwanted purchases.
• Depositing the cash immediately at the bank once it’s received. Check how the bank charges you for over the counter services. It may make more sense to receive payments and pay your suppliers via online transfers (direct debit, standing order or direct deposit).

But if all fails and you just don’t want to do it any more – hire a bookkeeper. Online bookkeeping is straightforward and will let you just view the reports and summaries, while someone else, like a virtual assistant, can deal with entering all transactions.