One of the most basic accounting tasks is bookkeeping, which involves keeping a record of all financial transactions. Our accountants can then take this information and roll it into tax services, another basic accounting service.

In bookkeeping, an accountant keeps a comprehensive record of how much your business owes creditors and how much is owed to you. The records of these transactions also indicate how much you have invested in equipment and inventory.

• Keep records as automated as possible. This makes it easier for the accountant to access the information.
• Keep records as clean and clear as possible. If it is difficult for the accountant to decipher ledgers, it just means more time for them and more money out of your pocket.
• Do your homework. Do what you can as you can to get all of the simple paperwork out of the way on your own, especially in the case of an audit, which can be costly.
• Hire temps. If you get behind and need someone to only to help you with a transition period, you may want to consider hiring temporary help, to get caught up.

At a minimum, your bookkeeper should do the following:

• Input Transactions: enter all your transactions into a computerized program such as QuickBooks on a monthly basis.
• Assign Items to Appropriate Accounts: assign all transactions to appropriate income and expense accounts.
• Reconciliation of Bank Statements: reconcile your bank statements on a timely basis.
• Financial Statements: provide monthly financial statements for your review.
• Assist with cost control: Based on experience working with many customers, a competent bookkeeper should let you know if you appear to be paying too much for specific items or services.
• Year End Reports for Your Accountant: provide your accountant with the information they need to quickly and inexpensively prepare your taxes.

Have you been bookkeeping using old methods and are thinking of switching over and using QuickBooks? If that is the case then you will certainly benefit from speaking to our staff on how to implement computer based bookkeeping. If you are a visual learner then you may also invest in some QuickBooks training videos to help you learn about all the features and how using QuickBooks.

Once you implement computer based bookkeeping in your business, you will be surprised to see all the details that QuickBooks handles and thereby does much of the work for you. You still have to enter information but all the difficult work that you have to think about is processed by the software! It makes being a bookkeeper significantly easier not to mention the books are always up to date and can provide you with exact financial information regarding the business.

There is no reason to remain stuck doing things by hand when you can quickly and easily learn how to use QuickBooks in your business to maximize efficiency.