I provide a range of services for small businesses as shown below. If there is anything else that you are interested in then do get in contact.
- Post expenses to the correct expense codes
- Create and send customer invoices
- Match any payment or receipts to the relevant customer or supplier invoice
- For those on payroll post the correct journal for each run
- For foreign transactions make the relevant exchange rate conversion and account for any foreign exchange variance
- Run a regular reconciliation and mirror of the bank accounts and credit cards
- Chasing customers whose invoices are overdue.
For every expense consider what evidence is provided as to whether VAT can be claimed and if so allocate the appropriate VAT code and so comply with HRMC regulations. For non-standard customer invoices ensure the correct VAT code. Run the VAT return report for you to authorize VAT filing with HRMC.
I provide bookkeeping in software Quickbooks which is a cloud accountancy package so that one can access the financial information out of the office. Depending on your needs I can advise as to which version would best suit you. I am a Silver Certified Proadvisor Quickbooks Online and have been using it since 2016.
Gathering receipts and bills, entering the information into the accountancy software can be an onerous task with the risk of the items get mislaid such that the VAT and sometimes the whole expense cannot be claimed. Using optical character recognition (OCR) cloud software can reduce some of this burden. You would need to send bills and receipts via email/upload/photograph(mobile app) to the OCR software. The app will “read” the bill/receipt extract the supplier name, invoice date, amount and VAT. Using this tool reduces the data entry and increases the speed of information being sent to your accountancy software so closer to real time. OCR tools can even convert your foreign expenses to sterling.
Not all financial data required is right for passing to OCR software but is still needed by the Accounting software Quickbooks. Emailing the information make the management cumbersome resulting in wasted time searching for the relevant email. A well thought through folder structure, using a file sharing tool, a logical procedure and guidelines makes it easy to follow thus less chasing is involved and you can concentrate on running the business.
A great advantage of up to date information on your accountancy package is the reports such as:
- What do customers owe and how long have the debts been outstanding so that I/you can chase them.
- Which suppliers are due for payment and by when
- Within a given period (year to date, monthly …) total for each category of income, expense and profit.
Over the last year Charlotte has proven to be a necessary help in the upkeep of our company accounts via Quickbooks. She is extremely friendly to work with but most importantly very knowledgeable, always making suggestions and providing the latest information for our best interest.
Jon Schaffer Director / Lighthouse Ltd