Simple bookkeeping for small business – Accounting by a simple spreadsheet template
Starting a small business outside their home, which offer products or services such as consulting, photography, selling on the web or a MLM? You are now faced with tracking all your expenses and income of your business and you certainly do not have the money yet to hire a bookkeeper or accountant. If your business is a sole proprietorship, whether a Canadian owned company or a property-based, does not need an accountant to submit financial statements of the Company (the books) to the IRS (USA) or Revenue Canada). Your income and losses are recorded as part of your annual tax personal income. For this start small businesses, you will not have to buy luxury accounting software, ACCPAC and Quick Books or to track your business.
Only as part of the incorporation of Bizfare Enterprise Inc in 2005 was a requirement to hire an accountant. My accountant insisted on the use of Quick Books software for my company accounts. Until then, using a simple spreadsheet template to serve my business accounting needs for over ten years. This simple accounting spreadsheet stood the test of multiple audits of Revenue Canada (CRA and Revenue Canada Goods and Services Tax. Both the hard copy book of columns and a version of an electronic spreadsheet of my financial books were accepted by Revenue Canada. (BTW audits revealed more ways for me to claim back additional taxes for the previous three years: that is my type of audit!)
In its start-up in business, is likely to generate anywhere from 10 to 30 month accounting operations. These operations should include items such as cost, sales revenue (), Liability (loan) type operations and Sales Tax (Federal + State / Provincial) Collection / Deductions. These operations are divided into several business accounts. All accounts you have set for your business is called a chart of accounts. Record of financial business transactions (Journal Entries) can be executed with pen and ink on an accounting columnar pad or electronically with the computer using a program Spreadsheet (MS Excel, Open Office, Star Office).
Whether you use the electronic media or printed, it is necessary to develop a simple Journal template for building your business Synoptic Journal. This Journal synoptic format has the advantage of allowing a complete overview of all transactions of individual journal entries against all various commercial accounts. The creation of this Journal Synoptics is easier to do what you think and requires no prior accounting or bookkeeping knowledge.
Tip # 1: You could further reduce the accounting items online (Journal Entries) by consolidating like items, such as "all sales of the month" and "all parking receipts for the month 'in a game amounted in the month.
Where do we begin to identify the accounts of companies in various synoptic required for Journal?
If you currently work for a company or government, insurance forms one of its employee costs. Look at each of the areas identified as expenses – meals, mileage, hotel accommodations, taxis, car rental, telephone and cell phone, plane ticket, office supplies, etc. This is an excellent place to identify various business expense accounts you need to set for their books of business. To complete your business plan accounts include a Business Bank Account, Sales, COGS (COGS), Sales Tax Collection, marketing expense and others as required. Each of these accounts will figure as a title on top of each column in the Synoptic Journal. Each row (heading) is the journal of individual transactions entered by you.The daily transactions are grouped and business summary for each month, usually January to December.
So your summary would be something like this Official Journal Summary shows http://picasaweb.google.com/carl.chesal/BookkeepingTemplate.
The column headings can be in this order (left to right):
DATE | DESCRIPTION | Bank deposits | bank withdrawals | Sales revenue | COGS | SALES TAX COLLECTED and remission | OFFICE SUPPLIES EXPENSE | EXPENSE # 2 | EXPENSE # 3 | ETC
Tip # 2: Unless your business is incorporated or an LLC, you need not go through the expense of opening a business account with your bank. Usually the accounts of companies charge a higher monthly fee, the burden of printing checks (checks) and offer no interest on your account balance monthly. Instead, open a separate bank account, personal (perhaps the savings). This will show the "collector" that is keeping the company apart from the personal banking. Remember that you are a sole proprietor and all of your business income (and losses) are applied directly to your personal tax filing (as the IRS and CRA).
To save you time and make it very simple, I've created a simple spreadsheet Synoptic Journal template which performs all the calculations for each month and rolls up to 12 months of business so easily can be included in personal preparedness annual taxes. This Synoptic Journal template debit / credit balances and controls, tracks sales taxes, mileage and totals for each of its fiscal year. If you want this free accounting template, you can get it at Communicate Innovate. With a few key strokes which will help to identify himself, will be happy to send you this FREE Synoptic Journal template and also to any future Small Business Tips.
Tip # 3: One of the rules of accounting is that every time you record a diary entry (heading which applies the operation to the appropriate business accounts) debits and credits must remain the same at all times. Debit Credit Like This calculator is built into this template FREE Accounting. When finished entering a line (daily transaction), verify that the amount the debit cell equal to the amount of credit in the cell. If they do not, you have not entered correctly in your transaction amounts of the magazine. Correct the problem before entering the next seat.
You are now ready to catch his books financial transactions with some simple accounting software. Accounting happy! And Happy selling!
