Bookkeeping is a key part of our services, but what is bookkeeping and why do you need it?
In a nutshell, bookkeeping is taking all your records – bank statements, sales invoices, purchase receipts, mileage logs, stock take, etc – and recording them in a proper format to allow the accounts to be prepared.
At LilyIris Accounting, the bookkeeping for our clients is done on Xero, with the help of Hubdoc. Clients raise their sales invoices and email out to their clients through Xero. All purchases are sorted through Hubdoc – just snap a picture of a physical receipt or forward any email receipts on to a special email. Your bank account (current, savings, credit card, PayPal etc) are all connected to Xero (all completely safe and no actual access to your bank account) so transactions are imported. We are then able to reconcile all the transactions – which is basically matching up the invoices and receipts to your bank account and ensuring all transactions are recorded properly. Any transactions outside of your bank statements are then also recorded properly to ensure your bookkeeping is complete.
Bookkeeping is the foundation of your accounting system; without all these transactions being recorded properly the annual accounts can’t be prepared, so it is an essential part of the process.
At LilyIris Accounting we do the bookkeeping for you, all you need to do is raise your sales invoices (we can do this as well in some cases) and take pictures of your receipts/forward emails to Hubdoc and we will do the rest.
Keeping your bookkeeping up to date allows you to have a full picture at all times of your finances and where you are situated, profit wise. This is why we complete bookkeeping for our clients on a daily – or at the very least, weekly.
With up to date numbers you are able to understand your business better and use the numbers to help you to grow. With up to date records you’re able to see easier who owes you what – and deal with late payers more efficiently.
With daily bookkeeping it also means you’re able to answer queries quicker – how many times have you come to do your accounts and can’t remember what a receipt 8 months before was for?! With daily bookkeeping you’ll have everything fresh in your mind. It also means it’s little and often, not some horrible, huge task that you keep putting off doing. And as it’s all done regularly and up to date it means quarter end for VAT and year end are all so much easier as the foundations are all there ready for you to build on.