Previously we gave you a list of must do tasks your bookkeeper or accountant should be taking care of either once a week or every day. Things like checking your cash flow, recording transactions, invoicing and paying bills can’t wait to be taken care of monthly or quarterly, they have to be done on a much more regular basis.
This week, as promised, we are providing a checklist of tasks your bookkeeper or accountant should be performing at least once a month. Do you know how often these jobs are being done?
– We recommend making sure your credit card statements and bank accounts are reconciled once a month. If you have a business with high revenues, then your bookkeeper could do it more regularly. Once a month is also a good time to double check that all transactions for the month have been recorded, such as sent invoices, customer billing, and customer payments.
– Whether your bookkeeper or accountant keeps paper records or electronic ones, make sure they’re filing bills and payments at least once a month and that they’re placing those items in alphabetical order or somewhere easy to find.
– Every profitable business gets paid and pays its bills on time. Make sure your bookkeeper is preparing and sending out invoices, identifying account balances past due, and following up on past due invoices at least once a month. As for accounts payable, your bookkeeper should not only be making monthly payments on time, but be reviewing reconciliation of open POs and requesting statements of accounts from all vendors.
– If your business sells a physical product, then your bookkeeper should be keeping track of your inventory and meeting with the CEO, CFO and/or Controller about inventory reserve. Your bookkeeper should also be prepared to help you to determine if you have excess inventory or products that are obsolete and may need to be written off.
– Make sure you’re paying the people who help you run your business, your employees, in a timely manner. Even if you have a bi-monthly pay schedule, your bookkeeper should make it a point to review payroll at least once a moth.
There’s so much for a small business owner to think about, so having a bookkeeper to help you is a good idea. If you don’t want to hire a bookkeeper full time, then consider us at Brigade Bookkeeping. We are bookkeepers on demand, who help our clients with their books and their daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly accounting tasks.
Next blog, I’ll continue my best bookkeeping practices with a bigger bookkeeping picture and what your bookkeeper should be doing for clients every quarter. Until then, have a great week everyone!