Professional accountants and bookkeepers from FINSYNC’s Services Network weigh in with advice to keep your small business back office running smoothly all year long.
By FINSYNC
Everyday, FINSYNC matches small businesses with independent financial professionals that are best suited to help their business grow. From bookkeeping and accounting to financial analysis and corporate strategy, these expert services are available on a contract basis when you need them.
We sat down with a few of FINSYNC’s bookkeepers and accountants for some bookkeeping advice for small business owners. Here are five best practices straight from the experts:
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Reconcile Your Accounts
Linda Cappadona, Bookkeeper
“Always reconcile your bank and credit card accounts. Everything feeds either through a bank account or credit card, so if you can do that, it gives you a really good sense of where your money is going.
Start from your beginning balance and reconcile to the end of the month, every month. If the closing balance in your accounting software doesn’t match the closing balance of your bank account, then you need to find out why and make a correction. If you don’t conduct bank and credit card reconciliations, you won’t be able to discover what’s causing the discrepancy and fix it.”
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Build a Payments Rhythm
Linda Cappadona, Bookkeeper
“The second rule of small business bookkeeping is to build a payments rhythm. Don’t push data-entry and reconciliation tasks off because it’s tedious and time-consuming. It’s crucial that you review your books at least once a week. It can help to set recurring calendar events and automate processes wherever you can. One way to build a payments rhythm is to automate your bookkeeping to ensure your books are always up-to-date.
If you fall behind on bookkeeping, your books can quickly become a mess and problems can become more difficult to untangle. At the very least, make sure you always keep accurate and consistent records.”
Learn more from Linda about bookkeeping for beginners.
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Start Prepping for Tax Season Now
Juan Llantin, Accountant
“Don’t wait until the end of the year to start tracking expenses. About half of the businesses I work with don’t keep records. At year-end they run into problems because they don’t have the records necessary to find possible deductions. Most of the businesses I talk to try to deduct expenses that they can’t validate. If we take those deductions and are then in a situation where you’re audited by the IRS, you will end up with the burden and will need to pay.”
Get more tips from Juan on reducing your taxes.
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Hire a Bookkeeper
Jennifer Brenner, Bookkeeper
“The biggest mistake that I’ve seen is business owners trying to do their own books. Unless you have a background or you’re very well taught, doing your own books is the quickest way to create a mess.
My advice is: The skill that you start your business with is the thing that makes you money. Your best use of time is to use those skills to make your money versus trying to learn the whole accounting theory of debits and credits and trying to do your own books. It’s worth the money to pay someone well to do your books.
If you don’t value your bookkeeper, your business is going to suffer. I have clients who every year insist on doing their own books, and every year I end up having to charge them a lot to clean up their books.”
Learn more bookkeeping best practices from Jennifer.
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Use an Intuitive Financial Platform
Linda Cappadona, Bookkeeper
“FINSYNC has a really good platform for projects — I actually like the FINSYNC platform better than QuickBooks. A business owner can easily get on the FINSYNC platform and see where everything is. They can see where their money is going, where they need to cut back, and they can access reports such as Profit and Loss and Balance Sheets. As a business owner, that is what you should be focusing on.”
Mark Wright, Accountant
“If you’re a client that has the ability to work with professionals remotely, the FINSYNC platform provides cost savings and efficiencies. Everything is cloud-based and backed up. All documents are saved online — invoicing, bills, anything — so it’s all paperless and saved.”
Get connected with a FINSYNC specialist that’s best suited to help your business grow.