Accounting Checklist: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Tasks for SMB Owners

accounting checklist

If you wait too long to bill your client, you’re more likely to result in a delinquent payment. Weekly trips are a decent frequency to help you keep your cash flow healthy and records updated with any paper checks and cash payments. Also, remember to verify if the checks cleared before you spend more money or pay out more bills. However, for any cash or check payments not received online, make depositing these funds a weekly habit. At the end of each day, reconcile all cash payments and payment receipts received in the general ledger to get a good idea of each client’s cash balance.

To make bookkeeping even more manageable, use Link My Books, our bookkeeping solution that automates the entire process, saving you time and money. This article will show how a detailed checklist can simplify bookkeeping, solve common financial problems, and promote business growth. Many bookkeeping processes we discussed today are manual and extremely error-prone (even with robust internal controls).

  1. This not only prevents errors but saves firms precious time at the end of the month.
  2. Once you’ve downloaded your free templates, you can customize them with the specific client tasks you handle and never worry about missing a due date.
  3. All you need is a simple statement showing your current cash position, expected upcoming cash receipts, and expected cash payments for this period.
  4. You can use an accounts receivable aging report for a quick view of outstanding customer payments.
  5. Reconciling your cash makes it easier to discover and correct any errors or omissions — either by you or by the bank — in time to correct them.

Paint a picture of your clients’ financial health, cash position, and overall financial stability by pulling together accurate financial statements. This includes income statements, bank account statements, credit card statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Basic small business bookkeeping includes tracking your expenses, recording the transactions, and reconciling your business bank statements. It can also include putting together the three key financial statements—the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement.

Your Ultimate Bookkeeping Checklist: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Year End

Regularly analyzing and adjusting your cash flow projections allows you to anticipate shortfalls and plan accordingly. Use your weekly financial data to update projections, considering upcoming expenses and double entry definition expected revenues. With weekly invoices, the product or service you provide to customers is still fresh in their minds, so there’ll likely be fewer questions or qualms about the bill.

accounting checklist

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If your employees clock more than 40 hours a week, you might be liable to pay them overtime. It doesn’t hurt to keep a close watch on their timesheets to avoid surprises and allocate budgets accordingly. You can track everyday business expenses from communication tools, contractors, and rent in one seamless dashboard. Businesses can also manage their travel and entertainment expenses without the constant headache of submitting manual expense reports. Depending on where your clients operate, they may also need to make quarterly state income tax payments. If your clients operate in one of these states, you need to calculate, collect, and pay sales tax on their behalf.

Prepare and send invoices

If you don’t put a process in place for your accounts payable then you could be facing late payment charges or even opening up space for fraud. Plus, it ensures the accurate application of tax rates, prevents VAT overpayments, and provides more insight into your finances. With numerous financial tasks, a bookkeeping checklist will help you stay organized and ensure nothing gets overlooked. A well-crafted bookkeeping checklist simplifies this process by offering a structured approach to everyday financial tasks. The end of the month is the perfect time to review all invoices and understand the balance of aged receivables. Make sure to send email reminders to customers who are yet to pay by the invoice due date, or you can also call customers directly for an update.

They can also set up automated reminders to follow up with clients at intervals until they provide the requested documents. Reviewing your what is bond price definition of bond price bond price meaning firm’s financial performance at the close of the fiscal year allows you to identify trends, profitability, and areas of improvement. Tax season usually starts in the first month of the year, so it’s best to be prepared beforehand to avoid delays and penalties.

This approach boosts efficiency and accuracy while reducing manual errors. Year-end accounting involves closing out a company’s financial activities for the fiscal year. A well-structured checklist can streamline general accounting definition the process, increase efficiency, improve accuracy, and boost productivity.

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