Free Small Business Bookkeeping Templates

If your business chooses to keep this task in house, it’s best to stick to a predictable expense tracking schedule. Developing a bookkeeping routine prevents you from accidentally forgetting important steps in the accounting process. Maintaining bookkeeping tasks is essential for the stability and success of small businesses. With so many moving pieces , small business owners must understand where the money is going. Despite the importance of accurate bookkeeping practices, most people don’t feel entirely confident with maintaining detailed business finances.

We will go through the steps required to adapt and use it to maintain your company books. Something worth mentioning is that while Microsoft Excel is the most popular bookkeeping spreadsheet1, it’s not the only one available. Google Sheets is a close alternative, but you can also use WPS Spreadsheets, Apple Numbers, Quip and even OpenOffice if you prefer open-source software. But keep in mind that OpenOffice is discontinued, so it won’t offer much in the way of support and updates. As a business owner, you want your business to grow so you need to make some tactical plans on how to develop your business. With the information in your bookkeeping, you can focus on your short and long term goals. You can also be track results and adjust your goals accordingly.

Set up a small business payroll system

Finally, they generate the reports you need so you’re ready to prepare your taxes or hand them off to your accountant. Sunrise and Wave offer fee-based bookkeeping services, but they lack QuickBooks Live’s interactive features. There are many great choices for small business bookkeeping accounting software, but setting up a system properly is complicated. The better the program is tailored to your business, the easier and more beneficial it’ll be to use. Hire a pro to customize your chart of accounts, products and services, customers, vendors, and invoices.

As a small business owner, it’s critical that you’re involved in the financial management of your business. Here are my top 12 bookkeeping and accounting tips to keep the process simple and help you understand how accounting information can increase the success of your business.

Know the basic bookkeeping and accounting lingo.

This step is important because it establishes your business as legitimate and may help to limit your personal liability if your company is ever sued. Whether you are doing this part-time or full-time, you don’t want to skip this step. Writing a business plan is something that everyone should do before they start their own business.

It’s also a good idea to become familiar with the accounts included in your chart of accounts, which will make it much easier when you begin to enter financial transactions. The exact process and costs for this vary from state to state and depend on the type of business structure you choose. If you decide to go into business as a sole proprietor, you can simply hang out your shingle and start working. However, registering as a limited liability company gives you more liability protection. If you don’t have them already, you’ll need to have a solid grasp of bookkeeping principles. Fortunately, there are several ways you can learn, both online and in person. The cost per credit hour is generally much lower than a traditional four-year college, and you can attend full-time or part-time, depending on your schedule.

Why Bookkeeping Is Important

This simple but comprehensive template allows you to create a 12-month cash flow forecast for your small business. The spreadsheet includes monthly columns for recording forecasted and actual cash flow.