Tag: Bookkeeping Services For Small Business

Every great business was once small. It is not easy to be a small business owner. Allegedly, one of the many challenges is to master the art of ‘multitasking’, the sooner the better. A small business owner can easily transition from overseeing human resources to marketing, operations to administration, and so on, in no time.

The need for this stems from the fact that most of the small businesses start with a small team and it is almost impossible for them to hire an expert in every department in the office. The good part is, they don’t have to. Well, not for the major roles in finance at least. There are many agencies that provide services like taxations and bookkeeping services for small businesses.

What is Bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping is the organization of all financial arrangements within a business. This includes keeping a record of every transaction, including Sales, Purchases, Receipts, and Payments. The main object of bookkeeping is to ensure that financial information is accurately maintained, complete, and readily available.

What are bookkeeping services for small businesses?

Bookkeeping is the backbone of any successful business. However, keeping an in-depth record like this can be intimidating for anyone without a financial background. Bookkeeping services for small businesses are on the rise because they help streamline the process. All this is done without actually hiring a financial expert, which can easily cost them a significant amount. Many accounting firms in Houston offer tax accountants for such purposes.

Choosing Bookkeeping Services

By understanding how to choose the right bookkeeping service according to the needs of the business, you can ensure well-managed finances and long-term success. You must keep the following criteria in mind when selecting bookkeeping services for small businesses.

Evaluate the needs of one’s business

Understanding your business’s needs is important. Considering variables like your budget, volume of transactions, and financial complexity is a must. This will help you choose between a basic or complex accounting service.

Hire a Finance Expert

After carefully understanding your business, the next step is to hire an expert who knows the basics of finance. This is one thing not to compromise on. The advice of a seasoned finance person can be of paramount importance and brings accuracy to the table. 

Value experience and proven potential

While hiring, consider factors like qualifications and experience before choosing an accounting specialist. Look for experts who possess the relevant certificates and credible experience as far as small business tax services are concerned. This lowers the risks involved in finance management and ensures stability.

Elements of Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is a detailed financial record that tracks various aspects of a small business’s finances. Some of those aspects are discussed here.

Transactions 

These are the records of everything, such as sales, purchases, receipts, and payments, that are made on a daily basis. Accurate documentation of transactions is extremely important. It is also the most basic function of bookkeeping.

Journal Entries

These are the list of transactions arranged in chronological order as and when they occur. Every transaction is recorded including the date, amount, and the accounts involved. It is just like maintaining a regular journal and keeping the specifications in mind.

Ledger

Classifying transactions in accounts within the ledger helps categorize transactions. They are according to modes like cash, accounts receivable, inventory, etc. These ledgers provide an overview of your financial activities.

Trial balance

This is a list of all ledger accounts that compares total debits and credits. It ensures that all accounting records are well-balanced.

Financial Statements 

It involves creating various business-related documents, such as a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. These documents indicate the financial situation of the business and are also handy in taxation processes.

Reconciliation

It is concerned with comparing the information in the records to other statements (such as bank statements). This ensures that the statements match and allows room for corrections.

Scale New Heights with Expert Bookkeeping Services

Financial records are the backbone of any successful business. After understanding the criteria for choosing the right bookkeeping services for small businesses and multiple elements of bookkeeping, one thing is clear.  This job can be best performed by a professional. 

Hiring an expert with industry experience and a successful track record would have been a tough job, but not with Houston Small Business Services. We provide tailored bookkeeping services best suited for small businesses. We are time-saving, cost-effective, and expertise-driven. Head to our website today and scale your business to new heights.

Accurately extracting financial information from business transactions and maintaining a comprehensive record of all income and expenses are the two main components of accounting for small businesses. This is a necessary task that, particularly in the beginning, aids small business owners in effectively tracking and managing their finances. In addition, accounting services for small businesses help keep you informed about the past and current performance of your company.

Choosing the Accounting Technique and the Fiscal Year

Your reporting of income and deduction of year-end expenses is based on your accounting method. The two options available to you are accrual and cash. Here’s how they compare. 

Twelve consecutive months during which accounting activity is documented make up a fiscal year. The only requirement is that the fiscal year must consist of 12 consecutive months, but small business owners can choose when it starts and ends. 

You may choose, for instance, to have your fiscal year start on June 1 and end on April 30 of the following year. Alternatively, if a more conventional approach suits your business better, you can ask your tax accountant in Houston to have your fiscal year coincide with the regular calendar year. For example, if your business is seasonal, you can decide to start or end your fiscal year at the start or end of your busiest sales period.

How Do You Maintain Accounts for a Small Business?

Below are the steps that you need to follow to maintain the accounts of a small business.  Make sure to go through all the steps carefully to understand the complete process and successfully prevent committing any mistakes while accounting. It may take some time but it is very much recommended, to a point, a professional to make the process very easy. 

Examining Monetary Transactions

The first step in the accounting process is analyzing financial transactions and entering those relevant to the business entity into the accounting system. Loans obtained for personal use, for instance, are not listed in the business records. The second step is preparing source documents, which are also known as business documents. A source document is the basis for documenting a transaction. Your law firm accounting services, can streamline the process for you. 

Journal Entry

The double-entry bookkeeping method records business transactions in a journal, also called Books of Original Entry, in chronological order. Law firm accounting services use a journal to record recurring transactions to make this process easier. The general journal contains the transactions that are debits and credits of the transactions 

Ledger

A general ledger is a group of accounts that shows the current balances in each account and the adjustments made to each account based on previous transactions. Another name for it is the Books of Final Entry. Look for a reliable accounting firms in Houston, to help you in this complex process. 

Trial Balance 

To determine whether the total debits and total credits are equal, a trial balance is created. A report is created by taking the accounts out of the ledger and organizing them. Both the debit and credit columns’ balances ought to be the same. If not, the trial balance contains errors that need to be located and updated with new information. It is crucial to remember that mistakes can still occur even when the debits and credits balance out. Examples of these mistakes include those brought on by duplicate posting or missing entries.

Modifying Entries

It is essential to adjust entries at the conclusion of the accounting period to update the accounts included in the financial statements. Income, for instance, is earned but not documented in the books. Adjusting entries are made for prepayments, deferrals, allowances, depreciation, and the accrual of income and expenses.

Modified Trial Balance

An adjusted trial balance must be made after the adjustments are finished to confirm that the debits and credits match the adjustment entries. This concludes the procedure before the company’s financial statements are prepared.

Final Submissions

Temporary accounts that are measured on a regular basis, such as the income, expense, and withdrawal accounts, are closed in order to set up the system for the upcoming accounting. The permanent accounts, or balance sheet accounts, are open for the following accounting cycle.

The final step in the accounting cycle is to create a post-closing trial balance to verify that the debit and credit amounts are equal after the closing entries are made. Since the temporary accounts are closed for this accounting cycle, only real accounts are included in this trial balance.

Finance Made Easy with Accounting

It is impossible to overstate the significance of accounting for small businesses. Having a strong accounting plan can help you keep an eye on and preserve your financial health, regardless of how much experience you have or don’t have. 

When handling your company’s books, you can save time by using bookkeeping and accounting services in Houston. Don’t let accounting overwhelm you. Let Houston Small Business Services simplify your financial management so you can focus on growing your business. With our expert guidance, accurate record-keeping, and tailored accounting solutions, your business will thrive

Bookkeeping services for small businesses involve monitoring your company’s revenue and expenditures. This provides you with an overview of your business’s overall performance and cash flow. Maintaining your accounting will help you avoid making unanticipated discoveries about account balances and spending. We have put together this guide to assist you in comprehending the fundamentals of small business bookkeeping.

Why Bookkeeping Services for Small Business Important?

Being a business owner requires you to perform bookkeeping duties. It is significant because

• Information is arranged by bookkeeping, which takes financial data and arranges it for simple comprehension and analysis.
• You must provide accurate information about your assets, purchases, expenses, gross receipts, entertainment and travel expenses, and employment taxes when filing your taxes.
• Understanding your cash flow enables you to commit resources to new initiatives and projects to expand your company. It also helps you manage small business tax services. 
• When your books are in order, you can accurately assess the state of your company. You are then in a better position to decide on operations and growth.
• Obviously, you want your company to turn a profit as much as possible. Keep track of your earnings and progress with bookkeeping.

The Elements of Accounting

Understanding the basics of accounting is key to keeping your finances in order and running a successful business. Here are the main components you need to know to build a solid accounting system:

Keeping Track of Transactions

The general ledger, which keeps track of everything in one location, should have a line item for every financial transaction. The account number to which the debit or credit is applied is noted in the general ledger. For frequent debits and credits, the best accounting software automates a large portion of the journal entry process to help reduce the possibility of data entry errors.

Dispatching Bills

The bookkeeper will prepare and send invoices for any money that the business needs to collect if it is not done at the time of the transaction. When this is done in the accounting software, the cash or accounts receivable account is debited and the sales account is credited, creating the invoice and a journal entry.

Basic Financial Statement Preparation

Since tax accountant in Houston and business owners use the data gathered in bookkeeping, it is the foundation for all financial statements produced. These statements can then be used by accountants or business owners to learn more about the company’s financial health.

Payroll Completion

At the conclusion of each pay period, the bookkeeper compiles employee payroll information, such as rates and hours worked. Then, the total compensation is calculated, including all relevant taxes and withholdings. Paychecks are processed and sent out. The main journal entry for the entire payroll in the accounting software debits the compensation account and credits cash.

Choosing Your Accounting Methods

The accrual method and the cash method are the two types of accounting methods available. The approach you choose should help you effectively manage the financial aspects of your company.

Accounting Based on Cash

Cash-based accounting is the first accounting technique. When money is exchanged, this method records the transaction. This implies that you do not record an invoice until it is paid. Similarly, unpaid bills are not recorded until they are paid. This approach provides an accurate picture of your debts and assets at any given moment.

Accrual-Based Bookkeeping

The accrual-based accounting method is an additional approach to accounting. Even if the bills have not been paid yet, this method still keeps track of them. This method is highly recommended because it gives the company a financial status based on known incoming and outgoing funds. You can calculate growth using the data because the funds are recorded in the bookkeeping. 

How Do Bookkeeping Steps Work?

To ensure that the books are accurate and current, you should typically follow these four steps when doing the bookkeeping. Every transaction has a designated account before it is entered into the general ledger. Examine the next four steps to handle your bookkeeping effectively.

Allocate Transactions to Particular Accounts

Look at the object in question to determine which account it is associated with. For example, funds from a sale will be credited to the account for sales revenue.  Making sure that transactions are appropriately assigned to accounts enables you to maximize the benefits of your bookkeeping software and gives you the best possible representation of your business.

Upload Data to the Ledger Account

You can post the entries to the general ledger to obtain an overview of your current cash situation once they have been correctly assigned to the appropriate accounts. You do not have to worry about taking an extra step because most accounting software handles this for you.

Finalize Entries for Every Accounting Period

Give your entries a thorough review at the conclusion of the accounting period. Your books are more accurate after adjustments. For instance, you might have made estimates for some invoices that you subsequently confirmed with a precise figure. 

Bookkeeping: A Tool To Easy Business

Business owners must comprehend their organizations’ financial standing. This begins with accurate and up-to-date books. All the data is entered into books so you can pull out the information needed to decide on hiring, marketing, and expansion. Find credible accounting firms in Houston to help you streamline this complex process!

Ready to master your small business’s finances? At Houston Small Business Services, we specialize in providing expert bookkeeping services tailored to your unique needs. Gain clarity on your cash flow, make informed decisions, and ensure your business thrives. Don’t wait to get your books in order and watch your profits soar.