Las Vegas Business Networking Group | Professional Women

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Six Recordkeeping Best Practices for Small Businesses

By Barbara Nelson

So, you have your own business but hate tax time because you have so much work to do gathering up all the documents for your CPA.  This can be made so much simpler if you just do a little recordkeeping planning at the start of the year.

Messy Desk 2. An example of improper recordkeeping
A messy desk = bad recordkeeping

Recordkeeping Best Practices
 – All Year Long

  1. Don’t throw your receipts, checks, invoices, etc. in a shoebox.
  2. Use a file cabinet with separate hanging files and file folders. Or if you don’t have a cabinet, you can buy several different self-contained file folders that have separate pockets for months and/or types of documents.
  3. When you write a check, keep a copy of that check in a file in date or check number order. Do this as soon as you write a check.
  4. Attach the copy of the bill you are paying to the check copy. If you write a lot of checks per month, you might want to separate each check and file by vendor name.
  5. When you invoice your customers, keep a copy of the invoice in a file in invoice number order. Or if you have a lot of customers, you might want to file in separate folders for each customer.
  6. When you receive a payment for that invoice, you will easily be able to find that invoice and attach the payment receipt to the proper invoice.

Whether you do the recordkeeping yourself for your business or have a bookkeeping service like ours keep your books for you when tax time arrives, you will have all the information that you need for your business at your fingertips.  Doing the bookkeeping using a software product such as Quickbooks will be a snap with the information being so available.

Messy desk 1. An example of bad recordkeeping
A messy desk like this is an example of bad recordkeeping.
Image of a file drawer for organized recordkeeping
Filing system for organized recordkeeping

 

Remember, Shoeboxes are for Shoes. 

 

You can read Barb’s Bio HERE
Website: bluechipbookkeeping.com

Barbara Nelson
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About Barbara Nelson

Barb Nelson has an MS in Accounting. She is a QuickBooks Certified Advisor and is a QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor. Barb provides confidential accounting and bookkeeping services to individuals and small businesses so you can concentrate on the operations of your business.