An ever-growing number of us are now paying for our bookkeeping or accounting system by subscription. This is a monthly expense to our business. We need to make sure that this expense is working for us – helping us by increasing efficiencies, saving us more money that it is costing us, saving us more of our time, and providing accurate data to make informed decisions in our business.
Here are some things to consider:
- Utilise automatic bank fees and bank rules – set up bank rules so that the system generates transactions for us automatically especially for recurring transactions – saving you time
- Automate superannuation payments directly from the accounting system – to assist in ensuring your superannuation obligations are reported and paid by regulatory due dates
- Lodge BAS directly from the accounting system – with correct reconciliation procedures, you can lodge directly from the software to the ATO without completing hardcopy BAS form, or relying on your BAS or Tax Agent to lodge on your behalf – saving you time and money
- Review your bank accounts – are you mixing personal expenses and business expenses in the one account or several accounts? Reorganise your accounts to business only and personal only accounts. If you engage a bookkeeper, this will save you an enormous amount of time, and money
- Have a set of End of Month processes that you perform every month of the financial year. This will save you an enormous amount of time and money at the end of the financial year. It will reduce the workload for your bookkeeper and your accountant
- Get foundation skills in your accounting system – “what you don’t know, you don’t know” – without good foundation level training, there are so many things you can be doing in your accounting system that will help you in your business. Attend a course to see what you are missing out on
- Get your employees to enter their own timesheet data – are you still manually entering your employees’ timesheet data to enable payroll processing? There are many options available for employees to maintain their own timesheets, either accessing your accounting system with limited access, to third party tools that interface directly with your accounting system
- Enable employees to work from home – with online accounting systems, this now opens up the opportunity and flexibility of working from home. This could reduce commercial office expenses and increase employee productivity
- Increase accuracy of data entry – inviting your BAS or Tax Agent to your online accounting system enables them to verify data entry and ensure you keep complete and accurate records. It also assists your accountant at end of financial year when they are required to view source documents as these can be saved inside the accounting system – saving you accounting fees
- Review Key financial reports every month– are you reviewing at a minimum: Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, Accounts Receivables, and Accounts Payables reports every month? If you are not sure how these reports can help you, ask your BAS or Tax Agent, or contact me for a step through these reports
- Do you know where your clients and leads are coming from? and what is your conversion rate from enquiry to a client? Depending on your industry, there are many ways to track this information. This is powerful information that will assist you in where to target your marketing.
A bit of food for thought now that the end of financial year is done, and we are well into a new year. This is a perfect time to review our accounting systems and to make sure they are working for us.
If you need assistance with Xero training, or Xero, MYOB, Microsoft Office applications, contact Elke on 0410 819 783, Email ewick@miebs.com.au.
Visit us on Facebook, or visit our website here. Visit our other blogs here.