Do you feel like your bookkeeping is a hot mess? Are you spending hours just trying to get it all done in time? As a business owner, it can be tempting to try and do all of the bookkeeping yourself; however, it doesn’t take long before things get messed up! Here are some of the most common bookkeeping mistakes that could be screwing up your finances.
You have too many categories
When most business owners try and do their own bookkeeping, they often make so many categories that are all similar to each other. For example, having a category for office supplies and also one for materials. While these are all slightly different names, they tend to cover the same type of expenses. When it’s time to look at your numbers, it’s not easy to see where you stand when you are looking at all the categories.
A bookkeeper can help you sit down and review your expense categories and help you format bookkeeping programs or templates to match the needs of YOUR business rather than some premade business template.
You don’t reconcile your bank accounts
This is the process of making sure that your bank statements and bookkeeping match up. However, over time, this process gets pushed further down the to-do list for most business owners because they are just too busy. A bookkeeper can help make sure that your bank statement matches and that everything is accurate. They can help catch mistakes and keep you from misreporting information.
Duplicate or deleted transactions
It’s very easy to accidentally enter office supplies twice or delete a personal transaction from your books. Here is an excellent example of what this looks like.
You have 2 purchases from a supplier for the exact same thing. The amounts are exact. You enter these in and reconcile your bank accounts, but then later upon looking you see what ‘appears’ to be a duplicate entry so you delete one of them. So next month, your numbers are off, and there is no way to reconcile the account.
This happens more often than you would think! Having a bookkeeper to go over the process again can catch the mistakes BEFORE they happen!
You don’t save money for taxes and business expenses
Especially at the beginning of the month, it’s easy to say that there is plenty of time to make payments and save up for tax season. However, the time comes, and you forgot to save! Taxes are a significant part of owning your own business, so it’s essential to make sure that you have that money set aside.
A bookkeeper can help ensure that you are always saving enough money to cover your business expenses and taxes, and even help you prepare those documents.
Hiring a bookkeeper can help you avoid some of these mistakes all together! While this might not be possible for everyone, there are so many positives to hiring a bookkeeper, and avoiding these mistakes is one of them!