Whether it has a handful of employees or 50, day-to-day bookkeeping is an integral part of any small business’ accounts. While using a professional accountancy service can free up more of your time, if you’re handling your own accounts, you’ll want to complete your bookkeeping as quickly and effectively as possible. Read on to discover some useful ways to save time on your company bookkeeping.

Work without distraction

Before tackling your bookkeeping, always make certain you have a quiet environment where you can work free from distractions – being interrupted can quickly cause you to lose your place or make errors.

Adopt specialist software

Avoid using local tools to record your bookkeeping figures like Microsoft Excel, and make an investment in a cloud-based solution instead, which is specifically designed for simplified and streamlined accounting.

You’ll also find applications that can automatically capture images of your receipts or add new contacts or leads to your dedicated accounting platform, avoiding any need for manual entry. Many bookkeeping tasks can be automated, leading to faster and more accurate accounting. This can be particularly useful for handling time consuming areas of your accounts, like payroll.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software can save you time managing your client base and can be integrated with your accounts, speeding up your ability to keep track of unpaid bills or invoices.

Establish separate accounts for personal and business finances

Setting up a business bank account that operates independently from the one set up for your personal use is crucial if you want to have a clear picture of your finances. Take the same approach with any types of account you use for you firm to take payments, like platforms such as PayPal. This will save you time in the long run if you need to reference a payment or complete an annual tax return for HMRC.

Stick to your bookkeeping schedule

Once you have established a dedicated schedule for all your bookkeeping duties, make sure you adhere to it. While you won’t want to waste endless hours on your accounts, you must be sensible about how much time you allocate to each task and ensure you don’t rush the process and make mistakes.

Always ensure that, during your allotted bookkeeping time, you reconcile all of your financial accounts before you finish, or you’ll waste time later on.

If you find a figure that doesn’t reconcile or balance, investigate the matter immediately. Leaving such situations for later can lead to larger problems over time. When you identify why the error occurs, alter your workflow to ensure that it won’t happen again.

Assign your bookkeeping to a personal accountant

Regardless of the sector you operate in, if you’re looking for a small business accountant in South Yorkshire, at Adaptive Accountancy, we can help. We understand that while it’s important, bookkeeping is a process that can be time consuming when you have a business to run. Helping small businesses with a diverse range of accounting needs since 2011, we’ll ensure your bookkeeping is handled swiftly and efficiently so you can focus on your company.