9 Small Business Accounting And Bookkeeping Tasks You Can’t Ignore

If you ignore any of these 9 tasks, then your business very well might fail.

Most business owners believe if they want it done right they have to do small business accounting basics themselves. Not true!

Consider this: 

You may be an expert at what you do (and figuring out how to do something), but what does it cost you, your business, and your success to not outsource small business accounting and bookkeeping tasks-especially with an Expert LOCAL Bookkeeper & Accountant like me.  Answer: I can: bring your books current, have my in-house cpa prepare and file your taxes and provide spot on reporting all in-house and for a third of the cost of doing it yourself or parsing things out.  Or, you could just do it yourself…I guess. 

Think out of the box.

Instead of selling another $50,000 project, you’re stuck in the office balancing your own books wasting valuable time growing your business. 

Instead of generating another record month in revenue, you’re buried in a mountain of accounts receivables and payables or worse, trying to interface with an online bookkeeping call center who is out of state and whose customer service stinks.  

Instead of adding another 7-figures to your bottom line, you’re preparing your tax documents so you can give up a larger percentage of your collected revenue. 

Why not get small business accounting services, bookkeeping and tax prep all under one roof?

Again: 

What levers do you want to pull in your business?

Revenue generating or revenue tracking and recording?

How much is your time worth to you, your business, and your success?

Here’s how an online, local DMV bookkeeper and expert accountant can help rescue your books and turn your accounting system into a simple, reliable system: 

9 Small Business Accounting And Bookkeeping Tasks You Can’t Ignore

#1. Prepare Source Documents

Before you can dive into your small business accounting and bookkeeping responsibilities you need to prepare your source documents. These are your financial records, statements, and reports that give you a financial view “under the hood” of your business. 

Without the proper preparation of these documents, every effort you make with your accounting and bookkeeping could increase your risk of making a bad financial decision for your business.

A bad financial decision equals turmoil for you, your employees, your customers, and more.  Simply don’t do that. Instead, click below, I’m standing by to help right now!

#2. Analyze Financial Transactions

Once you’ve prepared your source documents, you can start with a financial transaction analysis. Why start here? I need to examine, analyze, and determine how cash is flowing to, through, and out of your business. 

Without this 30,000-foot view of your cash flow, your financial decisions can be misinformed. Where you see a positive cash flow and ability to invest in a new service, product, or process, you may actually be in the red, unable to invest money, and leverage your business where you shouldn’t right now. 

This is why it’s imperative that you get a local master bookkeeper and accountant when: 

• You generate revenue in your business. 
• You grow your business and team large enough that you can’t do everything yourself. 
• You want to actually get financial reports, statements, and records that help you make informed financial decisions. 
• You want to grow and scale your business quickly without the headache of not knowing how every penny in your business is working. 

#3. Record Business Transactions

Use a journal (also known as Books of Original Entry) to record any and all business transactions in chronological order. This method is a part of the double-entry bookkeeping system. This system shows two accounts: debit and credit. 

Want to make the process easier? Hire an expert bookkeeper. and accountant. As one, I use a unique journal to record recurring transactions like purchases, sales, receipts, and more. If there are any transactions that cannot be included in the “auto journal,” then your bookkeeper will manage the recording of those transactions another way. 

Do you want to take the time to identify, set up, and run this system? Of course not. Trust a master bookkeeper to do it for you. 

#4. Keep A General Ledger

This is a financial tool to keep a bird’s-eye-view of the changes made to each account in your business based on prior transactions, as well as the current balances in each account. Pair this with your financial journal to keep tabs on your historical and present financial transactions. 

Why does this matter? Over time, you will see financial patterns. Compare these to the market, other businesses in your space, or customer/vendor buying/selling behaviors. These two tools are simple and straightforward, but they give you a wealth of financial knowledge you otherwise would not have access to. 

It’s time you make informed financial decisions for your business. Start by clicking below, right now.

#5. Test Unadjusted Trial Balance

Use a trial balance to prepare a test and uncover if your debits equal your credits. Extract accounts from your ledger and arrange them in a report. The balances of the credits and debits of these accounts ought to equal. 

If these debits and credits do not “balance,” then you’ve got yourself a financial error. 

Why is this important? You can find, target, and rectify financial errors in your business without being at the point of decision. For example, say your team misrepresented a financial transaction (or two), and you’re making financial decisions based on incorrect numbers. How do you know this to be the case? You test against your accounts. 

Catch financial errors before they put your business under more stress or risk. 

Best way to do this? Bring on a local online bookkeeper who can manage your financial records, statements, and reports so that you don’t walk into horrible business decisions based on false data.

#6. Adjust Entries

Account for accrual of income, expenses, depreciation, allowances, deferrals, prepayments, and more. Adjust your books to match these unrecorded entries alongside recorded entries.  

It’s not enough to assume that since you have more cash flowing in than flowing out that your business is in a great financial position. Prove your assumption with the help of an expert accountant who is also a master bookkeeper. 

Knowing your numbers can help you save a ton in ill-informed decisions, as well as unnecessarily acquired credit.  So instead of doing it all yourself, Click below and Call me today.

#7. Run Adjusted Trial Balance

Once you complete your adjusted entries, run an adjusted trial balance test. The process is similar to an unadjusted trial balance test, but this test is after you adjust your accounts based on fixing errors, recording financial information otherwise not entered, and more. 

Test that your debits and credits balance against one another. 

If they do not balance, then you need to go back and find the error. 

If they do, then it’s time to create financial statements. 

#8. Create Financial Statements

These are your standard statements: 

• Income statement aka your P & L 
• Changes in equity statement 
• Balance sheets
• Cash flow statements

This is what accountants and bookkeepers typically call the “end product” of the tasks listed above and they need to be spot on. Mine are. How will you know? Click below to find out:

#9. Complete Closing Entries

It’s not over. It’s time to prepare your financial records for the next accounting and bookkeeping cycle.

Depending on your business accounts, transactions, cash flow, and more, your master bookkeeper can get your financials in order so that your next accounting/bookkeeping cycle goes smoothly. 

More: 

Closing entries tests your accounts debits and credits one more time to confirm balance. While this may seem a bit overzealous, it’s necessary to triple check your financials. 

Do you know what’s worse than not having any money?

Not knowing where the money you do have is located (or how it’s working for or against you). That’s it. And who wants to do all of this yourself? Or, deal with a far away outsourced bookkeeper who is invested in your business nor located in the DMV? I’m sure you don’t want to either.

So a recap and…What’s Next?

Here are the 9 small business accounting and bookkeeping tasks I covered in this post: 

1. Prepare Source Documents
2. Analyze Financial Transactions
3. Record Business Transactions
4. Keep A General Ledger
5. Test Unadjusted Trial Balance
6. Adjust Entries
7. Run Adjusted Trial Balance
8. Create Financial Statements
9. Complete Closing Entries

Forget doing this on your own!  Click below and let me handle it all: bookkeeping, accounting, & tax prep–all under one roof. I am the expert your business needs right this minute. Don’t delay any longer. Click below. I’m waiting for your call.

Now that you understand the 30,000-foot view of how a master bookkeeper and accountant can help you keep your small business accounting in order (and out of a mess), it’s time you consider your options. 

You can spend nearly an entire week in working hours every month taking care of or coaching someone through your accounting and bookkeeping tasks…

Or…

You can trust an expert bookkeeper, master accountant and in-house CPA with more than 15 years of experience helping small businesses with annual revenue between $500K – $32 million get and keep their books up-to-date and maintain them in good order.  Hassle free. Guaranteed.

Do you know what your time is worth? It’s not worth dealing with this on your own. Stop dealing with this on your own.

It’s certainly worth more pulling bigger levers in your business than balancing, recording, and reporting financial statements. 

You working ON your business instead of in it grows your revenue exponentially.  Let me rescue your business starting now.