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.
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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.