There’s a lot that goes into successful bookkeeping for your business. The overarching idea of bookkeeping covers more than just recording revenue and expenses each month. The primary role of bookkeepers is to record sales, receipts, payments and purchases in various ledgers – including petty cash books, customer ledgers, supplier ledgers and general ledgers. There are some ways in which bookkeeping may, by necessity, overlap with record keeping more generally.
Financial documents of all types are the most obvious answer, but there a handful of other important records or documents it’s important to keep for bookkeeping purposes. These include:
What might be considered excessive pack rat collecting in your personal life is more like thorough due diligence when it comes to your business. If you’re not sure whether you need a document, it’s probably best to keep it. Even things like old insurance policies might one day be relevant if a past client or customer files a claim.
There are a handful of other responsibilities bookkeepers have in addition to maintaining ledgers and safeguarding records. For example, many businesses roll things like payroll and invoicing into bookkeeping. Whether your business has a dedicated bookkeeper or you work with a third-party provider like H&H Accounting Services depends on your personal preferences and your business’s needs.
You’ll also need to decide on things like your accounting method. With cash-basis accounting you only record income and expenses when money is exchanged. Accrual-basis accounting allows you to record transactions as they’re incurred, even if funds aren’t exchanged until a later date.
Many business owners feel like cash-basis is the easier of the two options. Cash-basis allows you to have a clearer picture of the cash you have on hand at any given time, while accrual-basis tends to provide a more accurate picture of your business’s health.
Which you choose likely depends on your particular business. Many professional business accountants and bookkeepers can provide both so business owners can watch the health of their business in terms of actual cash on hand and total assets.
The ledgers and information compiled by bookkeepers every month is what accountants eventually use to put together balance sheets, income statements, cashflow statements and other potentially important documents like statements of shareholders’ equity. Those documents can be particularly important if your business is attempting to attract investors or secure financing.
Hiring a company like H&H Accounting Services to handle your bookkeeping and business accounting can be hugely beneficial for many SMBs in the Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe areas.
Even the smallest businesses might have a high volume of complicated invoicing. Many retailers need to deal with sales tax – potentially in multiple jurisdictions – or manage complex payrolls, benefits and a long list of operating expenses.
You can purchase your own QuickBooks account and hire your own Certified ProAdvisor internally to handle some of those tasks, but that often ends up being a significant investment. Your business will likely save money by working with a single accounting company that can handle:
Working with the same company for all those services is also a lot easier since your tax preparer should have nearly all the relevant records on hand when the fiscal year comes to an end.
Those big three accounting services are likely the most vital, but they certainly aren’t the only things a skilled SMB accounting firm can do for you. At H&H Accounting Services, we also:
Working with experienced accountants who already have extensive experience in all these aspects of business accounting can save you time and money. It’s also a less risky proposition than hiring a specialist internally who may end up being inexperienced or incapable of offering all those services.
Does your business need reliable bookkeeping? H&H Accounting Services offers all the business accounting services your SMB might need today and in the future. Contact us at (480) 561-5805 for a free one-hour consultation and find out how we can simplify your bookkeeping and minimize your accounting headaches.
