Are you trying to do your own small business bookkeeping and finding it too demanding?
It could be time to hand over your bookkeeping requirements to give you back time to focus on the essentials of running your business and what you’re good at.
While online software such as Xero has made it easier for business owners to do their bookkeeping, it’s not necessarily the best approach.
Good bookkeeping is so much more than simply allocating transactions. Excellent bookkeeping is an integrated service that aids your business to thrive. By acting as your trusted business guide, and taking a keen interest in all aspects of your business systems, compliance, finances and reports, we’ll help you run your venture efficiently and skilfully.
10 Common Problems with DIY Small Business Bookkeeping
Do any of these DIY issues impact your business?
- Spending too much time on things you’re not an expert in – we look after accounts all day, every day, so we know the software inside out and can apply industry best practices to keep your financial accounts in excellent condition. We’re also experts in GST law and payroll processing so you don’t have to be.
- Late supplier payments – having your accounts payable managed by us means that you’ll get an ABA file for upload to your bank on the due date, so you maintain good relationships with your suppliers and keep your cash flow on track.
- Not reconciling accounts – one of the fundamental principles of bookkeeping is the reconciliation of banks and other key accounts, which many business owners either never do or do incorrectly, leading to inaccurate financial reports.
- Missed compliance deadlines – we’ll keep you on track and let you know ahead of time when your ATO lodgements and payments are due, so you never get late penalties.
- Making costly mistakes – looking after your own accounts often results in unintentional errors because of a lack of knowledge, leading to expensive corrective bookkeeping down the track.
- Incomplete record keeping – it’s a business owner’s responsibility to keep records of all business transactions and activities to validate financial transactions. We can help establish good digital record keeping procedures to make it easy, by using Xero and Hubdoc, which is free with your Xero subscription.
- Depending on software to know the answers – while Xero is the industry leader in the automation of processes, it is by no means intelligent enough to make correct decisions every time for every business. Relying on Xero’s allocation suggestions alone can lead to significant issues with the accuracy of the general ledgers and GST.
- Not understanding how to read financial reports – this is so important for every business owner, whether you are a start-up sole trader or director of a large company. If you don’t understand how to read financial statements, you won’t pick up errors in the accounts nor have a good picture of the business’s overall financial position, therefore you won’t be making good financial decisions.
- Confusing personal and business expenses – we recommend keeping your personal and business expenses completely separate, that is, never using your business bank account to pay for personal expenses. However, sometimes it happens by accident or necessity, in which case the transactions must be allocated correctly. Using business accounts to pay for personal expenses creates unnecessary transactions in your accounts and therefore takes time to process.
- Not processing payroll correctly – Australian payroll is notoriously complex and there is a great deal of detail to consider. Unless you have extremely simple payroll it’s easy to get payroll processing incorrect. Again, correcting errors down the track ends up costing a lot more than doing it right the first time.
Hand Over Your Small Business Bookkeeping and Free up Your Time and Headspace
We’ve been asked to sort out the accounts of many business owners who continued doing their own bookkeeping longer than they should have. We understand that many people start in business as a sole trader with simple operations, and it is appropriate to do your own bookkeeping then and learn about accounting basics. Problems begin when business owners don’t upgrade their systems to match their growth and plans, they get too busy to look after the accounts properly and then it gets out of hand.
It’s always beneficial to get help before it becomes urgent. As soon as you realise you are doing too much, not keeping up with compliance deadlines, or falling behind in simple business administration processes, it’s time to talk to professional bookkeepers who can take the pressure off and look after your bookkeeping.
Once you let the bookkeeping get out of control, it is easy to keep putting it off. This only compounds the problems and as your stress increases, you tend to make more mistakes or omissions. Handing over the bookkeeping will free up headspace so you can focus on other aspects of the business. Talk to us now to see how we can ease the strain.
Spend Less Time on Your Accounts and More Time Doing What You Love
Statistics tell us that many new businesses fail within the first couple of years. Two of the most significant issues are not being aware of the legal obligations of being in business and not understanding financial management. We are here to help you with both of these factors by overseeing all your small business compliance needs and ensuring your finances are managed proficiently.
Let us help you achieve success, and you’ll soon appreciate the value of having our support as you have more time and energy for doing what you love.
Get in contact if you’re ready to upgrade to professional bookkeeping.