With the emergence of cloud accounting the media often spruiks that bookkeeping is a dying art, however it’s simply not right. At the core of every business is a need for up-to-date information, and informed decision making, to ensure success and long term sustainability.
The integrity of this data is also more important now than ever before, as the Australian Tax Office can fact check multiple sources – ride share platforms, AUSTRAC income, and Taxable Payment Annual Reports are just a few areas of national monitoring. So what should you look for to ensure your bookkeeping is keeping you compliant, but also helping you make informed decisions?
- Bank Accounts
- Are your accounts being reconciled on at least a monthly basis?
- Is your reconciliation report checked back to the statement balance on bank accounts to ensure all transactions have fed through online bank feeds?
- Accounts Payable
- How long have your bills been ‘outstanding’? Are they paid, or duplicated?
- Are you paying your accounts within their due dates – e.g. are you capturing the information in a timely manner, and paying accounts payable often enough that you’re meeting your obligations?
- Accounts Receivable
- Are you issuing your invoices in a timely manner?
- Are you following up on outstanding, unpaid, invoices?
- Payroll
- Is your payroll process documented, so that if your bookkeeper is unwell someone else can step in?
- Is your superannuation paid through an attached clearing house, such as Xero, to ensure streamlined reporting? This is going to be even more important come 1 July 2026 when super guarantee will need to be paid as staff are paid.
- Reports
- Are the reports you use favourited?
- Do you review the reports and understand the basics on the Profit and Loss, and Balance Sheet, reports? There may be other reports that are important to review – and your Accountant can help you set these up, favourite them, and help fill in any gaps of understanding.
- Balance Sheet
- Does your GST and Pay-as-you-go-withholding reflect reasonable amounts compared to your Activity Statements at the end of the quarter?
- Does your wages payable account regularly clear to zero once payments are made? A high balance here can indicate the incorrect recording of wages paid.
- Is your superannuation payable account current amounts? E.g., no more than 1 quarter outstanding.
It’s important to have a working relationship with your bookkeeper with regular communication, whether they’re in house or external. If you have queries about your accounting file health, contact your local Accru office to discuss.
