Accounting Tips for Your Business
Over the past few weeks, we've had several emails from SMME owners about how to bring their accounting and financial information up to date. This has primarily been driven by the requirement for updated financial information when applying for funding or COVID-19 relief schemes.
In addition to working with these clients to update their accounting records, we highlighted the five tips below to assist them going forward. We hope you find it useful!
1. Be organised
One area where many businesses fail to be organised is with the maintenance of source documentation. Firstly, make sure that you keep all source documentation and secondly make sure that you keep everything in one place so that it’s easy to reconcile at month/ year end.
2. Remain disciplined
Ensure that you are consistently capturing your source documents. We have seen numerous clients skip a month or two, and end up not doing their books for months after that because they feel it is too much effort and will take too much time to catch up.
3. Keep accurate records
If you use accounting software, you’ll be able to connect your banking feed to the software. This ensures accuracy in the numbers. If you are manually capturing figures, consider putting a review process in place where someone else is checking the numbers.
4. Put everything through your bank account (as far as possible)
It is a lot harder to keep track of cash payments and receipts, compared to tracking income and expenses in your bank account. As far as possible, put everything through your bank account so that there’s an audit trail. Using cash means more admin and time spent on keeping record.
5. Consider outsourcing your accounting
If you don’t have the time to do your accounting, you don’t enjoy it or you don’t have the skills to do it, outsource. Professional accounting help is generally a good idea, especially if you don’t have the skills.
Boraine Consulting assists SMMEs with a full suite of accounting, tax and consulting services. Our focus is on improving the sustainability of SMMEs through financial literacy and empowering SMMEs with tools and information to make sound financial decisions about their businesses.
If you’d like a consultation, contact us at info@boraineconsulting.com
Additionally, click here for a free health check of your business.
