Bookkeeping Tasks Broken Down

You can use a variety of bookkeeping strategies to make sure that your books stay up-to-date and accurate, no matter what type of business you run. Here’s a look at best practices for keeping your books in order on a daily/weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.

Daily/Weekly Tasks

You will want to check your books and records daily or weekly (depending on the size of your business) to ensure that all transactions are recorded.

The day-to-day/weekly tasks you should complete to keep your books in order include

• Enter/record expense & income transactions
• Send invoices, estimates, and sales forms to clients
• Updating payroll records
• Make any necessary bank deposits
• Review unpaid bills
• Document/file receipts
• Review projected cash flow

Monthly Tasks

There are a number of tasks you will only need to do monthly. These include:

• Balance your books (reconciliation) – reconciling all your accounts (checking, savings, credit card, and any other accounts you may need to).
  • Analyzing your account balances include reviewing all outstanding account balances for accuracy and completeness. Check invoices against purchase orders, credit card bills against sales receipts and bank statements against checks written. If there are any discrepancies or missing information they should be investigated immediately so they can be corrected before they grow into larger problems or cause damage to your business’s reputation with suppliers or customers (and possibly even legal action against you!).
• Review past-due receivables
• Analyze inventory
• Process/review payroll
• Prepare and review your financial statements.
  • Review Profit & Loss vs. Budget and compare it to prior years
  • Review month-end balance sheet & compare to prior months

Quarterly Tasks

• Review quarterly payroll reports & make payments
• Review sales tax & make payment
• Estimated income tax amount & make payment to the IRS & State
• Review your year-to-date revenue and expenses
• Make payroll record updates

Annual Tasks

• Review your general ledger to ensure everything looks good
• Fill out 1099-NEC forms to send to contractors & sub-contractors
• Fill out W-2 forms for all payroll employees
• Review past-due receivables
• Review inventory
• Full year financial report
• Review & approve tax return
• Review your reports to your budget/goals and create a plan for the next year.

Keeping up with your books is essential to ensure they are accurate and so you always know where your business stands at any given moment. It will also save you a lot of stress come tax season.

xx Lotte