Bookkeeping New Year Resolutions

The year has rolled on towards a fresh and exciting start – it’s time to think about your New Year Resolutions.  Not for you though, for your business!

We’ve put together some suggestions as a starting point, but of course you may have some of your own to add too.

1. Put all of your business due dates in your calendar – twice!

One week before they are due and one on either the day before or the day they are due.  That way you can’t possibly forget! Use the first reminder to get any work done – it may be running a report or doing some coding, and use the second reminder to make the payment.

1. If you’re coding your own file make a promise to yourself that you’ll do it regularly and on a day when you have the time.  Regularly can be whatever you feel is necessary, but experience tells us that it’s easier to remember what happened last week than it is two months ago!
2. If you find that you’ve got a lot of personal expenses in your business file and you’re using your business account because it has more funds, then consider making a weekly payment to yourself from your business account to your personal account.  This means that when you reconcile your file there’s not lots of personal expenses getting in the way.
3. Set up bank rules for items which occur regularly and for which you don’t need to track the purchase invoice. Think of things like monthly telephone bills, insurances, bank fees, bank interest and transfers to other bank accounts, for example.
4. If you don’t have a bank account already set for GST/Tax savings then it’s a good idea to set one up so that you have funds available for BAS time.  Look at sales weekly, fortnightly or monthly to estimate what to transfer for GST and add in your employee’s tax/PAYG which is calculated each time payroll is done.
5. Make sure that your bank accounts reconcile at the end of each month and if there’s an issue try to fix the errors, or at least identify the errors and enlist help to fix them up.

And if you fall behind with your file then shout out sooner rather than later, as it’s easier to catch up one quarter than half a year!

Please reach out if you need any assistance getting organised.

Happy Bookkeeping and Best Wishes for the New Year.

– Louise Hogg

Posted 30.01.2024

This article is compiled as a helpful guide for your private information and is subject to copyright. We suggest that you do not act solely on the basis of material contained in this article because items are of general nature only and may be liable to misinterpretation in particular circumstances. We recommend that our advice be sought before acting on any of these crucial areas.