bookkeeping n00b

[Archatype]

Some small clarification on bookkeeping. Do i need to write down and record every SINGLE purchase that is made? A typical example would be: Customer comes in, he buys a product and pays with his credit card and my pin device charges him £50 for x product, customer leaves.

Now I need to write down in the spreadsheet "commercial products: sale of £50 received by cc" so forth for every single transaction that is happening? or would adding the total of all transactions at the end of the day suffice?

[David Griffiths]

For accounting purposes you should keep a record of gross daily takings, and you should keep the Z readings of the till to back that up. If you are VAT registered, that "should" becomes "must"

Gross daily takings is the amount that you actually sell - it's not necessarily the amount left in the till each day, after adjusting for the float, because some traders make payments out of the till for small items such as stationery, refreshments or even payments to suppliers. If you just count what's left, your figure will be wrong.

For stock control and other purposes you might want a more detailed record, so you know what's selling, and when to re-order. You can take that analysis to any depth, including what combinations of products sell together. You will be the only one who can decide if keeping that kind of record helps you maintain stock, cross sell or upsell, or is just a waste of time.

[porttia]

Hi

Keep all your income and expenditure records and associated receipts

As well as your receipts you will need to itemise in a cash book, can be electronic or hand written

If you do not you will pay too much tax, I have a website portti but cannot post url yet but there is info on there and it has the uk ending thanks

Caroline

[Archatype]

My business is computerized and what I found out is that the program itself is doing all the book keeping necessary. I went to my accountant and he told me that the usual charge is around 1200-1500 and its a half days work to complete the tax return. Is that so? It seems too much to me to pay over a grand for half days work(assuming data supplied is in order):|

[Williams lester]

I am assuming that you are a sole trader if you only need a tax return completed (please correct me if this is incorrect!), if so, the answer is ....it depends. The quote of £1,500 does look on the high side for this but it will depend on exactly how much work the accountant thinks is involved in completing the return from the information you supply.