Daily Bookkeeping Tasks, Daily Bookkeeping Checklist

Bookkeepers are the silent but powerful heroes of every business. They keep tabs on everything and anything to make sure that your company’s finances stay intact, including cash flow statements, bank reconciliations and loss statements. We are looking for a skilled Bookkeeper to maintain our financial records, including purchases, sales, receipts and payments. You will need to track money going in and out of your business. So you will have to manage your accounts payable and keep your vendors paid. Bookkeepers may also share some jobs with accountants, such as the preparation of annual financial reports and tax returns.

At the end of each day, check your software to see if there are any client payments or expenses that need to be recorded and categorized—and, if so, get them done before you head out for the day. If your accounting software is connected to your bank and synced daily, there’s no need to wait for your monthly bank statement. Many accounting applications simplify reconciliation by suggesting matches, so all you have to do is review and approve them. Spending a little time on this task each day is easy and eliminates a grueling month-end chore. It’s also a good time to review pending transactions for any errors or abnormalities, so you can investigate potential issues promptly.

Kevin Brouillard is a writer, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, aspiring goat farmer, and finance specialist based in Upstate New York. In addition to covering small business topics for Merchant Maverick, he has experience writing about environmental issues, travel, and personal finance. Finding candidates is one thing, but connecting with the right candidates is another thing altogether. As you work to fill your next open position, we’re ready to help.

Month End Checklist

However, the role can vary greatly from business to business. So if you’re looking to hire a bookkeeper, it is essential to create a bookkeeper job description that fills your recruitment funnel with ideal candidates as quickly as possible. A Bookkeeper is responsible for recording and maintaining a business’ financial transactions, such as purchases, expenses, sales revenue, invoices, and payments. They will record financial data into general ledgers, which are used to produce the balance sheet andincome statement. You should also make sure that you record all payment information, such as note down the numbers of cheques received and the total sale invoicing done for the day.

Accrual vs Deferrals oversee a company’s financial data and compliance by maintaining accurate books on accounts payable and receivable, payroll, and daily financial entries and reconciliations. They perform daily accounting tasks such as monthly financial reporting, general ledger entries, and record payments and adjustments. A bookkeeper is responsible for recording daily financial transactions, updating a general ledger and preparing trial balances for perusal by accountants. They maintain and file requisite documents for taxation compliance. They monitor cash flow and produce financial reports to assist managers in taking strategic decisions.

There are bookkeeping tasks that need to be done on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Devising a system that works for your work style and schedule can help make the small changes to your habits needed to stay on top of weekly bookkeeping tasks. Business owners have plenty on their to-do lists, and it can be tempting to put off tasks that don’t seem pressing at the moment. Yet, letting certain responsibilities build up, like bookkeeping, can leave small businesses vulnerable to cash shortages, delayed payments, and disruptions to inventory.

Weekly Bookkeeping Tasks

With double-entry bookkeeping, you create two accounting entries for each of your business transactions. The next step is to get my client’s bank statement from the bank website and reconcile the bank account. All I need to do is log into the bank, get the statement, and reconcile the account. I need to wait on my client to give me the information for this task, so it doesn’t always happen as step four.

• Bigger companies tend to offer better compensation for bookkeepers; this is largely due to the increased volume of transactions and data.
• We’ll ask you a few short questions about your business and your very own dedicated bookkeeping team will handle all your bookkeeping and tax preparation needs for you!
• If you are keeping up with your books each month as described above, then all you need to do is close out the December activity.
• Preparing and sending invoices every week, rather than at the end of the month, can help reduce the scale and frequency of late payments.
• For instance, recording receipt and sale of inventory should be daily bookkeeping tasks for businesses working with higher sales volume or perishable goods.

Instead of waiting for a monthly bank statement, businesses can reconcile their bank accounts every week. By simply logging into an online bank portal, businesses can compare the bank account balance against their book balance as frequently as they want. Performing this task on a weekly basis helps businesses promptly address any inconsistencies and detect fraud before it becomes a larger issue. This allows you to compare the budget or prior period financial statements to watch for any errors or unusual balances. Review the income statement accounts for anything that looks off based on the preceding period and significant account balances that look out of place.

Review Employee Timesheets

When I do this task, it takes about a half hour of my time. At some point in the month, I need to get the deposit book from them so I can record all the income information for them. QuickBooks will learn your transactions, so every time you get something from Comcast, for example, it knows to put it into a certain category. However, even with all that remembering and automation, it still requires me as a bookkeeper to go through and fine-tune everything. I also track the estimated minutes it takes me to do each task.

• From there, you should take a few moments to check for any unusual activity and correct an error when it happens.
• Bookkeepers have to communicate with other employees to manage travel expenses, reimburse employee’s expenditures, petty cash reconciliation, and more.
• Their balance sheet is different from yours, so ensure yours is balanced…Paying the bills once per week eliminates this risk.
• Every week, the business should set aside time for miscellaneous bookkeeping tasks such as emailing clients account statements.
• Once a month is also a good time to double check that all transactions for the month have been recorded, such as sent invoices, customer billing, and customer payments.

Rather than sort through a stack of receipts at the end of the month, just snap a picture of the receipt and jot a note about the details. Tracking your clients’ cash position means knowing how much money their company has on hand at any given time and making sure expenses get paid on time. Maintaining accurate payroll records for your clients is essential.

Producing invoices, chasing payments, getting you ready for tax deadlines and processing payroll. These are just some of the things bookkeepers do for small businesses. A bookkeeper is responsible for recording transactions into the system, which is part of the wider and more general practice of accounting. Many business owners wait a week or two before invoicing customers, which not only gives you a less complete picture of your financial health but can raise questions for auditors. If you’re not using cloud-based accounting software that automatically backs up your data, make sure to back up your financial data manually at least once a month. This will give you peace of mind that you won’t lose your data if you have a hardware failure or file corruption.

Our article, When To Hire An Accountant For Small Business may have the answers you need. Develops system to account for financial transactions by establishing a chart of accounts; defining bookkeeping policies and procedures. The key is that you need to understand what bookkeeping tasks you should be worried about, no matter what time of year.

Then receive a tax estimate and have your CPA help you decide if there are any advantageous tax moves you need to make before year-end. At year-end, you should be so organized that you shouldn’t even have to be worrying about bookkeeping. You need to measure your financial results to make sure you are reaching your goals, and so you can make adjustments to keep on track. Access all Xero features for 30 days, then decide which plan best suits your business. When I added up all the hours, it was around five hours total for the month.

While it sounds like hard work, it’s quite straightforward when you know what you’re doing. One mistake and a dreaded letter from HMRC can soon be on your way. That’s where bookkeepers come in, as they can help make sure your business stays aligned with the relevant laws. The bookkeeper is generally responsible for overseeing the first six steps of the Accounting Cycle, while the last two are typically taken care of by an accountant.

Reconciling your bank account is one of the most important bookkeeping tasks you must do every week. Read on for a breakdown of essential bookkeeping tasks to keep your small business finances in order. I wanted to start by talking about bookkeeping tasks that you should be doing at least once a month, if not each day or week. Make sure you’re paying the people who help you run your business, your employees, in a timely manner. Even if you have a bi-monthly pay schedule, your bookkeeper should make it a point to review payroll at least once a moth. When you know which accounts to track and have the right tools in place, bookkeeping can be a breeze and not a headache.

Each month, reconcile your entries against the bank statement; use the reconcile process in your accounting software for the best reporting/results. Small business accounting checklist becomes useful. It takes the guesswork out of bookkeeping so you can focus on running your business. Often, small businesses keep a monthly bookkeeping checklist as many bookkeeping tasks need to be completed every month. But it’s also useful to have a daily bookkeeping checklist too along with an annual one. Many of the bookkeeping processes listed here are time-consuming and error-prone if completed manually but can be automated with accounting software.

Pay all necessary state taxes — which are different in every state but can include sales tax, excise taxes and more. Businesses will also be taxed at the local level and need to pay property taxes. But waiting and doing this once per month isn’t effective either. It’s easy to get unorganized if you’re paying an invoice at the beginning of a month but wait until the end to upload it. Most of your transaction entries will come from vendor payments and customer receipts.

Bookkeepers may also assist in running payroll and generating invoices for your company. Bookkeeping tasks can be done via accounting software, applications like Microsoft Excel, or the old-fashioned way in a ledger. You’ll need the full scope of a business’s financial information to do bookkeeping tasks.

At some point, as your business grows, you may want to pass some responsibility off to another team member. A checklist makes it easy to onboard and gives them an organized list of their monthly duties. There is nothing better than checking off tasks on your list as they get completed keeping you organized each month. As your business grows, there are a lot of tasks for a lot of clients that continue to grow, and it can be overwhelming, but having a monthly closing process can help. A bookkeeper will make sure that all of your business records are up-to-date.