You must maintain specific bookkeeping and accounting processes for efficient functioning when running a small business. Now that staffing is often limited in smaller companies, they have a lot to manage and, thus, can easily overlook some vital financial responsibilities.
The best way to ensure seamless accounting and bookkeeping for e-commerce is to have a well-planned checklist. While having a bookkeeping and accounting checklist, you can outsource vital bookkeeping tasks requiring expert knowledge.
It will help you save enough time and effort to manage other essential business functions. This article compiles your small business’s daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly bookkeeping and accounting checklists.
Daily Bookkeeping Checklist
Review cash-on-hand
As a business owner, you should start your day by quickly checking your cash. Cash on hand can be defined as the cash accessible by a business.
It usually includes your petty cash in the office and bank account. It’s recommended to keep enough money available to meet your unforeseen expenses. Reviewing your business’ cash position will prepare you to cover unexpected expenses.
In addition, keep the cash flow documented by noting all payments made to or from the petty cash or bank account to account for cash imbalances. You should finish your day by reviewing your cash position again for accurate information.
Account for daily expenses and revenues
Hiring professional accounting services for small business to record daily revenue and expenses can save you much time.
Moreover, maintaining these records will keep you up-to-date about the cash available in your company. In case of a mismatch, you can seek the remedy before the situation gets out of control.
Categorize transactions
Regardless of size, a business has more than one income stream and expense. Categorizing all business transactions will provide a simplified glance into where things are headed, allowing better funds management.
The main category heads for daily evaluation are debit and credit, i.e., expense and income.
Weekly Bookkeeping Checklist
Review your bills
Your small business can have many bills to pay. You can ask your accounting outsourcing service provider to keep on top of upcoming bills and their deadlines. It will help you prevent overdue payments and late fees.
Send invoices
Managing day-to-day business activities can get in the way of invoicing your clients on time. You can’t blame your customers for paying late because you missed sending them invoices.
In addition to sending invoices on time, consider sending reminders for unpaid payments. Don’t forget to check for paid and unpaid invoices to ensure you have recorded them and sent them correctly.
Check for open purchase orders
Open purchase orders (POs) are defined as orders in the process that you have not invoiced. They are not bills or payments until they are closed purchase orders and you have completed the transaction.
The reasons for having an open PO might be a partial fulfillment of orders or recently placing the orders with your vendors.
Recording open purchase orders during bookkeeping for eCommerce will provide an accurate picture of your business expenses while ensuring you record correct journal entries when the PO has been closed.
Reconcile bank accounts
Reconcile your bank accounts after reviewing your bills, sending and recording invoices, and dealing with POs and vendor deposits.
Matching starting amounts, income, outgoing cash, and ending amounts will be best to gain insights into your company’s cash position. In addition, look for errors such as failed, missed, or double transactions.
Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist
Update payroll
Payroll is an integral part of your business, with the government specifying mandatory regulations. It can be daunting to manage payroll for businesses, especially when they onboard new employees.
A professional expert in bookkeeping for e-commerce businesses can make it easier to update payroll reports and check whether your company has met superannuation and payroll obligations.
Review inventory
Managing and tracking is vital for the success of your small business. As a small business owner, you will want to store the right amount of inventory to reduce production downtime and increase efficiency.
Too much stock can cause storage or spillage issues, while too little inventory can impact production and cause a loss of sales. Monthly inventory management can limit shortage and excess problems.
It can further help account for stock requirements for the upcoming months, leading to a timely order process across your supply chain.
Yearly Bookkeeping Checklist
Clear year-end debt and invoices
When nearing the end of the year, you must finalize the information for the business’ annual reports. Debt settlement and payment collection will help your business prevent carryover.
Furthermore, you should check for unpaid invoices from your vendors and unpaid invoices to your customers and contact them when necessary.
Double-checking the invoices and receipts will help ensure that you have accounted for them all.
Additionally, categorize and fill them appropriately to find them easily when auditing your accounts. The fewer transactions you carry over to the next fiscal year, the better it will be for your small business.
Prepare and review financial reports
After settling all the transactions, you can create your yearly financial reports and statements, such as balance sheet, shareholder equity, cash flow, income statement, and changes in net worth. An accounting outsourcing service provider can help you create annual financial reports.
File tax returns
The end of the fiscal year also indicates that it’s time to calculate BAS and GST to file accurate taxes.
By this time, your small business should pay essential taxes relevant to your small business. These taxes might include capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, income tax, and more.
Filing tax returns on time will help you file a tax claim on business expenses and eligible tax concessions.
To wrap up it all
A bookkeeping and accounting checklist will help you carry out all vital bookkeeping and accounting tasks, increasing the efficiency of your business’s financial processes.
Having a well-planned checklist and hiring professional accounting services for small businesses will help your business stay organized.
In addition, you can identify errors in your small business bookkeeping and accounting processes and understand your company’s financial performance and position. With a bookkeeping checklist, you can save time and utilize it to complete other vital tasks.