4 Tips to Improve Your Bookkeeping this Year

We’re in 2022, which means most businesses are ambitiously setting goals for the new year. We know some of you are just recovering from the holidays and the last thing you want to think about in January is tax season. 

But we bookkeepers are already thinking about all those receipts you’ll spend hours hunting for or how you’ll soon be stressing while trying to navigate accounting software or your homemade excel spreadsheets. Before you know it you’ll be spending some “quality time” with your CPA during tax season while trying to get your books in order. We have some ideas that might make things a little bit easier for you next year. Remember, even small tweaks to your bookkeeping system can help you create systems that save you time and money.

Schedule Your Bookkeeping

It’s not rocket science but makes a big difference. Most businesses and entrepreneurs have lots of other things on their plate so the “when I get to it” accounting basically turns into an every six months endeavor that is just painful because it’s hard to remember everything you did six months ago much less dig up a receipt from way back then.

Put bookkeeping on your calendar. Be committed to the financial well-being of your business. Choose one day a week (or even every other week) and have a money date. Look at your books, pull together your receipts, upload receipts to your accounting software, and reconcile your books. Basically, clean up your accounting house and do it regularly. You’ll be amazed how much less time (and money) you’ll need to spend with your CPA when you’re managing your bookkeeping regularly.  

Invest in Software

It’s time to upgrade your business with accounting software. Believe us that while working in an excel spreadsheet might seem like the simplest solution, it’s definitely not the most streamlined way to keep your books. We recommend getting software like Quickbooks Online that has built-in tools that will help you better understand what’s going on in your business and allows to do things like upload your receipts so that your financial life is more organized. Every software has a learning curve, but a good bookkeeper can teach you to use the software and create online systems that make your financial life easier. 

Automate Your Financials

Setting up automation in your business is an easy way to save you time! We recommend using them from everything to automatic bill payments, payroll, invoices, and invoice follow-up.  And we also love to use automation within the accounting software itself.  Setting up things like the “Bank Rules” tool in Quickbooks which can automatically add transactions for you. And if you’ve ever gone through the tedious process of reconciling your bank account(s), you’ll be happy to know that QuickBooks Online has automated much of this process. These simple steps make things so much easier for you and allow you to focus on what matters most in your business, not the bookkeeping.

Get The Help You Need

Maybe you don’t need a full-time or even part-time bookkeeper, but you do have some bookkeeping questions or would like assistance with your books. We all need a little help sometimes. And at Oracle Profitability we love nerding out about systems and solutions. But even more than that, we like finding solutions that work for our clients. Building a healthy financial business has a learning curve, but you know your business better than anyone else and we know bookkeeping and profitability. Together we can do great things! 

Remember as you’re sorting through a box of faded receipts from last year and trying to remember what a certain line item from your bank statement is the night before your taxes are due…things can be better next year. You just need to make simple changes to your bookkeeping system today.