Bookkeeping is a complex procedure and holds great significance in the functioning of the business. The process can be simplified if you maintain a checklist to ensure that everything that needs to be taken care of, has been taken care of. But what falls under this checklist? What do you need to keep track of? Do not worry, we’ve got your back!
Here is a quick Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist to help ensure that you do not fall behind on your books.
- Recheck Cash Position
- Update Your Bookkeeping Software
- Record Revenue and Expenses
- Review Customer and Vendor Invoices
- Reconcile Your Records
- Sales Tax Returns
- Review Your Inventory
- Record Credit Cards Transactions
- Review Debt Accounts
- Review WIP Reports
Recheck Cash Position
This step is always overlooked by business owners which leads to unnecessary trouble later. To avoid this, you must keep track of the cash position as well. Before starting the new month, make sure you review your cash status. Check bills paid in cash, payments received in cash, cash balance, etc. Then make a note of it at the month’s end. Doing this will give you a monthly analysis of your business’s financial position.
Update Your Bookkeeping Software
Your bookkeeping software plays a vital role in the process of your bookkeeping. Having good Bookkeeping software allows you to do great bookkeeping. So, it becomes important to keep a check on the bookkeeping software that you use. Make sure you have the latest version of it, and that it aligns with your bookkeeping needs. In case your current software is not relevant to your bookkeeping needs, you must upgrade it and change to the one that meets your requirements.
Record Revenue and Expenses
People generally consider this a waste of time. Hence, they choose to ignore this step. But it is one of the most important steps to be taken care of. Recording the revenue generated, and expenses incurred every month gives you a monthly insight into spending and income incurred by the business. Having frequent insight into spending can help you in figuring out a way to reduce some unnecessary expenses. Similarly, if you have data regarding revenue generated every month, you may be able to produce ideas to help you in revenue expansion.
Review Customer and Vendor Invoices
Invoices play a key role in every finance management, irrespective of the nature or size of the business. As a business owner, you should keep a check on all the business-related invoices, of both customers and vendors. This will help you to organize your monthly expenses more efficiently. You can keep track of months with the highest vendor invoices and months with the lowest customer invoices, which will help you understand the supply and demand scale of the business.
Reconcile Your Records
Bank reconciliation statements summarize the bank and business activities and ensure that they are coordinated. This helps businesses to make sure that no irrelevant transactions have been recorded under the business entity. Doing this monthly also reduces the risk of fraud or misuse related to business finance. This implies efficiency in the recording of transactions and precise books.
Sales Tax Returns
Sales tax is inevitable for every business. It would be easy and healthy for your business if you recorded and prepared your sales tax monthly. Piling up the workload and trying to do it on a quarterly or yearly basis may lead to unnecessary issues or blunders later in the process. Hence to avoid inconveniences, try doing your sales tax monthly.
Review Your Inventory
Inventory defines the goods held in stock by a firm. Inventory includes not only finished goods, but also the goods under the production process, raw materials used, and the goods that will be consumed in the production of goods that will be sold by the business later. Inventory is the basis of the production process. Therefore, as a business owner, it is important that you review your firm’s inventory every month to ensure that there is no shortage.
Record Credit Cards Transactions
All businesses generally record their transactions altogether. But credit card transactions should be recorded separately as it is credit-based transactions. Sometimes the business card is also used for personal purposes. So, if you are not careful, you may end up mixing your expenses with business expenses, which may cause trouble later as the personal transactions of the credit card will not reconcile with the business transactions, and you will end up messing up your business books. Hence if you record your credit card transactions separately, you can segregate your personal and business transactions, which will help you avoid any further trouble.
Review Debt Accounts
Every business has pending balances on both the receivable and payable sides. Business owners consider these pending balances only during the end of the year, which becomes too much work. Reviewing accounts payable and receivable reports every month will help you to keep track of income yet to be received and payments yet to be made. You can also set follow-up reminders for the accounts receivable. Keeping track of business debt is important as it ensures that payments of business, both on the credit and debit sides, are made timely.
Review WIP Reports
WIP stands for Work in Progress. Businesses may not be able to complete all their tasks for the month every time. Some tasks may be left incomplete. Hence, every month as you will be closing your monthly balances, you must look at your work in progress and incomplete monthly targets. If possible, you can add them to your list for the upcoming month. This will help you ensure that eventually, you achieve all the goals you have made for your business.
The Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist ends here. We hope you find these steps useful and try to execute them the best you can. Every business has its own way of functioning, but these are some common methods that everyone can adopt. We hope you use these to ease your workload. Happy Bookkeeping!