We Show You 2 Steps You Can Take — Right Away!

WE’VE ENTERED QUARTER 4 for the 2016/17 financial year, so we’ve been writing about the things your business should be doing this quarter in preparation for the end of the financial year. In our last post we wrote about writing off stock and inventory. Now we’re looking at business expenses.

Our MYOB BAS Reporting and GST online training course or our Xero GST, Reporting and BAS training course will show take you through the necessary steps in your accounting software. 

Here’s what you can do now to make sure you’re prepared come tax time?

Store receipts

Most of your expenses are probably paid by direct deposit, but for those you’ve paid in cash or that require a receipt — business lunches, stationary, fuel, etc — Xero allows you to upload the receipt and attach it to the transaction, right from the Xero app.

Take a photo of the receipt on your phone and upload it to Xero, then store it in DropBox in case you ever require it again later. You no longer have to keep the paper receipt once you’ve got a digital copy.

Enter your latest account info

We generally advocate for daily or, at least, weekly data entry of your accounts — known as bank reconciliations — to ensure your reporting is always up-to-date.

If you haven’t stayed up to date, use this last quarter of the 2016/17 financial year to get your accounts in order. If you leave it until your activity statements are due, you may require rescue bookkeeper from a specialist bookkeeper.

Bank feeds: They’ll help you stay current

If you haven’t switched on the bank feeds feature in your accounting software, do it. This feature greatly speeds up the reconciliation process by automatically importing transactions on your credit cards and bank account. After you code them correctly the first time, Xero (or MYOB or Quickbooks) will automatically remember these transactions in the future, leaving only the new ones to code. We’ve written about setting up bank feeds in Xero, as well as how to set up bank feeds in MYOB previously.

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Check out more about our MYOB BAS Reporting and GST or Xero GST, Reporting and BAS online training courses. Alternatively, for rescue bookkeeping visit the National Bookkeeping website.

EzyLearn Excel, MYOB and Xero online training courses count towards Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for bookkeepers and accountants. We’ve been an accredited training provider of the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers ever since the organisation started in Australia. Find out how CPD points can be of benefit to you.