Accounting Checklist: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Tasks for SMB Owners

Regularly updating your tax file ensures you’re ready when tax season rolls around and helps you avoid last-minute scrambles. The frequency of employee reimbursements would depend on the frequency of transactions your employees make on your behalf. When managed traditionally, it leads to a lot of back and forths and errors, risking your company’s financial bottom line. However, despite knowing its importance, a recent study shows that 60% of SMB owners feel ill-equipped regarding their business finances and accounting. To learn how Addition Financial’s business banking accounts can help you with your finances, please click here now.

A Step-by-Step Bookkeeping Checklist for New Businesses

Also, check out our ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Automation, to learn more about how you can boost the efficiency of your business. The annual financial report is the culmination of all the hard work put in over the course of the year. This is one of your key reports for itemizing what the company owes and owns. This can be confusing, but we’ve tried our best to show you how simple these processes can actually be.

• When completed regularly, these activities help small businesses categorize expenses to streamline tax deductions and stick to a budget.
• Accounting relies heavily on the accurate recording of all income and costs.
• There are three main pillars of business accounting reports and one of them is your income statement, otherwise known as a profit and loss statement.
• Most invoices are due within 30 days, noted as “Net 30” at the bottom of your invoice.

Why do small businesses need to stay on top of accounting regularly?

Those mistakes can lead to hefty fines from state or federal agencies. It also involves making payments on time to avoid any late fees and maintaining good relationships with suppliers. The whole point of this process is to manage cash flow effectively and prevent any potential disruptions. Ultimately, verifying accounts payable is a proactive way to make sure our financial records are reliable, payments are made promptly, and our business stays financially healthy.

Weekly Accounting Tasks

Plus, familiarise yourself with the Making Tax Digital (MTD) government initiative to streamline the tax process. Right now, only VAT registered businesses are required to follow these processes. Sending invoices notifies your customers about a payment, but you’ll still need to find a way to accept that payment. It’s important to have a system for creating and sending invoices to your clients. Plus, you must keep these invoices in your records using an invoice numbering system. If you register as a limited company, you’re required to open a business account.

From that, you can estimate how much you will receive or have to pay during the next week or month. Keeping track of your accounts payable and setting aside money to pay them on time helps you maintain positive relationships with your vendors and avoid any late fees. Whether you make payments by cash, checks, or online payment gateways, don’t forget to keep copies of the invoices you send and receive. Welcome to your weekly accounting tasks, otherwise known as the land of invoicing, financial data management, and other business bank account fun. Launching a new business is thrilling, but managing your finances can quickly become overwhelming without a solid bookkeeping system in place.

Reconcile accounts receivable

Small business accounting tools can automate many daily, weekly, and monthly activities, saving time without sacrificing financial insights or visibility. Still, if you’re handling the routine tasks of an accountant by yourself or notice your team falling behind in bookkeeping duties, your company may benefit from outsourcing accounting. With the proper accounting system setup, you can spread out bookkeeping tasks to avoid a backlog of work. Since every company has different needs, this small business accounting checklist provides activities in four key areas. Here’s a free accounting starter checklist that you can use to set up your business’s accounting process to keep accurate financial records and make informed business decisions.

Project management

Clear & organized – This allows the checklist to be efficiently utilized by all staff members during the engagement and lets everyone know what is completed and what’s not. It is important to establish boundaries and expectations upfront and not incur scope creep, which can lead to delays in completing projects and additional costs incurred by accounting firms. The client will have to provide all the necessary information upfront so that you can adequately assess their needs and estimate what they are looking for. Streamline and standardize your month-end process with this dedicated workflow. Save time when completing weekly reconciliations with this standardized and repeatable workflow. The information in this guide is based on the Bookkeeping Best Practice template from the Karbon Template Library.

This means carefully going through all the bills and invoices to make sure they match up with what’s in the accounting system. Start a suppliers file and sorted alphabetically (Staples under “S”, Costco under “C,”etc.) for easy access. Keep copies of all invoices sent, all cash receipts (cash, cheque and credit card deposits), and all cash payments (cash, cheque, credit card statements, etc.). To maintain accurate financial records for tax reporting and performance analysis, you’ll need proof of what you spend on your business. If you set up your finances with accrual-basis accounting, you’ll record financial transactions when they occur, not when the money moves accounts. If you set up your finances with cash-basis accounting, you’ll record financial transactions when the cash moves accounts.

With these Process Street checklists, you’ll see how you can integrate Process Street with Zapier and Quickbooks to automate accounting processes, saving you time and money. You don’t need to be a CPA to create a balance sheet or an invoice. Our checklists enable anyone to perform accounting activities, and as you go through you’ll see the different steps explained where necessary. Once you’ve decided on the type of business you’d like to start, you’re ready to begin your research.

Key Features for Cash Flow Management

It can also categorize expenses according to tax codes, making it easier to claim deductions and reduce your tax liability. Billing your clients on a consistent schedule can reduce late payments. With weekly invoices, the product or service you provide to customers is still fresh in their minds, so there’ll likely be fewer questions or qualms about the bill. If you wait too long to bill your client, you’re more likely to result in a delinquent payment. We know that tracking all your receipts, invoices, and other essential documents can be challenging. However, tax purposes and internal records must have an audit trail to use if new business accounting checklist you find errors when balancing the books at the end of the month.

• A new business checklist requires keeping track of many moving pieces.
• If the auditor finds any underpayment of taxes, it will come to you, not your accountant, for any additional taxes, penalties and interest.
• It’s all about making sure the financial records are accurate and stable.
• Payroll can be tricky, especially when it comes to finding the right labor classification for your hires.
• Plus, importance is granted to getting your new hire working well with all the internal systems which keep your company ticking over.

Following a structured checklist ensures nothing slips through the cracks as your business grows. Paint a picture of your clients’ financial health, cash position, and overall financial stability by pulling together accurate financial statements. This includes income statements, bank account statements, credit card statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. The end of the year is a great time to review your business’s financial health. Use your accounting software to generate key reports, including an income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

The right accounting software, like Countingup, will help you manage your new business accounting smoothly and efficiently. As you prepare for your new business accounting, some tools can simplify the process and save you time. When you create a bookkeeping process for your new business, find what works best for you.

Generate financial reports and get a solid overview of your accounts with QuickBooks Online today. To keep a handy reference of this checklist, save our infographic below. Carefully categorize business expenses and liabilities at the end of every month and record all sources of income, including past due invoices. This not only facilitates easy tracking of cash flow but also lays the groundwork for accurate financial reporting.

If your tax situation is complex, consulting an accountant can prevent costly mistakes. Consider hiring an accountant or bookkeeper, especially as your business grows. Professionals can provide valuable advice, handle complex accounting tasks, and ensure compliance with tax laws. This entails verifying that your accounting records and bank statements match. The importance of this is that it helps to prevent fraud and inconsistency in your transactions. If the auditor finds any underpayment of taxes, it will come to you, not your accountant, for any additional taxes, penalties and interest.

Mistakes are easy to make and if left unnoticed can be very hard to correct – with huge consequences. Connect the Process Street checklist to Zapier to automatically fire your data into the generator with our Zap. Businesses of all sizes have to deal with accounting and it can be a bit difficult if you’re new to it.

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