Reviewing the performance of your business doesn’t have to be painful; work with us and we can drive your business forward and ultimately ensure you exceed your business goals.
Bookkeeping and accounting – what’s the difference?
Bookkeeping is the name given to the process of recording your businesses daily transactions, including sales invoices raised, money received into the business, supplier invoices for expenses incurred by the business and money spent. Accounting takes it one step further by providing for transaction known but not yet incurred, calculating taxes due and confirming balances owed, both to and from the business
Bookkeeping is the name given to the process of recording your businesses daily transactions, including sales invoices raised, money received into the business, supplier invoices for expenses incurred by the business and money spent.
Keeping proper accounting records
If you run a business HMRC expects you to maintain good records, whatever form your business takes – sole trader, partnership, limited company regardless of your VAT registration status.
Your accounting records will form the basis of your tax liability calculation and therefore it is essential that your records are accurate and up to date. Ensuring your records are current will also help you track and chase cash owed to the business, and to understand what your business owes to others.
Maintaining the company books can be time consuming, especially if you have got a bit behind. Bookkeeping should be done regularly – though this can mean different things to different people. It could be daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, but we recommend that it should be done on a daily or weekly basis. There are a number of software packages available that can help you keep your accounting records in order. If you aren’t sure where to start looking, get in touch and we can talk you through them.
Staying up to date with your accounting records
Keeping as up to date as possible with your record keeping can help to reduce errors, confusion, and stress. Some of our top tips on keeping accounting records include:
- Separate your business from your personal. Although not always a legal requirement, best practice is to keep a separate bank account for your business. If you want to withdraw funds from the business, make it a monthly lump sum. This will reduce the amount of work in recording and remembering whether a transaction was work related.
- Decide what format you are going to keep your records and stick to it. Get in touch with us for any questions on cloud packages or apps that can help along the way.
- Keep a list of important dates and set reminders for them in a way that works for you – these will be both submission and payment deadlines. Some things to include would be VAT, payroll, tax, accounts. There will be a range of deadlines to keep to depending on your business structure.
- Keep copies of your invoices in one place and in an orderly way. Having invoices in support of business transactions is a requirement by HMRC. You will be glad you took the time should you ever have an inspection!
Benefits of having up-to-date records allow up-to-date performance reviews and benchmarking.
If you are currently behind on your accounting record keeping, speak to our team today. We provide a clean up service where we can step in as your bookkeeper, and get your records up to date ready for ongoing maintenance.
Keeping a track of all this can be confusing, but WR Partners are here to help. Whether you want to keep your own records or outsource the process to an expert, we can guide you through the process so that you are confident in keeping your books in order.
Get in Touch
We love meeting new, exciting businesses. Get in touch with our team to see how we could enhance and protect your financial position.
Or if you’d prefer to speak to someone directly just give us a call on: 08000 664 664 or email: hello@wrpartners.co.uk.
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