Book-keeping/Accounts basics?

[YMW]

Where can I find information about basic book keeping /accounts for a start-up business? My partner says he will do the books and I mena literally in a book recording everything by hand, but I want to understand the books as well. Do we need to record every transaction individually in the book? Do we need to print off an invoice or receipt or somethig for every single transaction and keep it somewhere? (If so I can imagine our office being full of paper in a short space of time :roll: )

If ther is a book or website you recommend for further info please let me know :)

Many thanks YMW

[DuaneJackson]

It might be a good idea to get something like "bookkeeping for dummies" - I'm sure it'd cover all of your questions and it's easier to refer to to look something up than to go online to look at a site.

Long live paper based books! (For reading anyway, not for doing bookkeeping!)

[Jayne]

I love paper book-keeping Duane :lol:

I use a green Evrite 701 SD Adcross Analysis book , ruled for VAT. It's a basic double entry type and give you instructions in the front. It's very easy to use once you get the hang of it. I fill it all in and send it to my accountant at the end of the year.

You need to keep all bank statements, bills, receipts, well everything really. It is a lot of paper and you have to keep it for min' 7 years, I box it up and put it in my attic, it is a pain to store, but you have to do it.

Jayne :D

[NicolaCassidy]

YMW,

I am currently writing some articles with exactly this information. If you would like a copy of the basic manual book-keeping one then feel free to send me a PM. It is very much in its draft phrase so would be helpful for me as well to see if you can understand it, as this is the market I am writing it for (for free of course).

Nicola

[annethedonn]

YMW

try www.freelanceoffice.skillspride.com.

If you're lucky, I may send you a free sage line 50 course as a good will gesture!!!

[KM-Tiger]

Where can I find information about basic book keeping /accounts for a start-up business?
It was a few years back now, but I went to the local library, borrowed all the books they had on accounting and bookkeeping, and read them.

[Jayne]

Where can I find information about basic book keeping /accounts for a start-up business?
It was a few years back now, but I went to the local library, borrowed all the books they had on accounting and bookkeeping, and read them.

Yep, that's what I did too and bugged my accountant for tips and lessons :D

Libraries are great places, nice and quiet too for learning.

Jayne

[Joyous]

Where can I find information about basic book keeping /accounts for a start-up business? ...

...If ther is a book or website you recommend for further info please let me know :)



Hi YMW

There are loads of bookkeeping tutorials on the web, here are a couple of the better ones:

http://www.investni.com/sab-bookkeeping.pdf
http://www.nrbarton.co.uk/Bookkeeping/Contents.html


I love paper book-keeping Duane :lol:

I use a green Evrite 701 SD Adcross Analysis book , ruled for VAT. It's a basic double entry type and give you instructions in the front. It's very easy to use once you get the hang of it. I fill it all in and send it to my accountant at the end of the year.

Jayne, you must be the exception to the rule because I have never seen a client fill one of these things in properly and for that reason I absolutely hate paper based bookkeeping.

I recently had one client present me with a beautifully kept set of manual books in which every invoice sent and received was listed. The only problem was that there were no dates on any of the transactions so you had no idea of which period to which they related and no subtotals at the end of any of the pages. On top of that he woud pay a number of invoices on a single cheque and it was a nightmare trying to match up payments to the invoices.

It would have been much easier if he had used an Excel spreadsheet to list everything as it would have saved me hours of keying in data.

So to anybody who is considering setting up a manual bookkeeping I'm begging you to fling those analysis books out the window and use Excel instead.

Regards

Joy

[dcaccounting]

Totally agree with the above!!!

In fact, dont do anything a just supply the paper work. Its quite frustrating (but seeing things from a clients point of view understandably frustrating) when you have to sort the clients work out (that they think has been presented beautifully) and then you give them a bill and they turn around and say "what did you do, i done all the work" grrr :D

Regards

Dean

[Jayne]

My accountant says he enjoys doing my books as they are so organised, I did offer to learn the computer way and he said, not to bother.

Therefore, it's not the books, but the customers fiiling in that's the problem! :lol:

Jayne

[dcaccounting]

Totally agree with that to :D

Regards

Dean

[bitsnstuff]

I want to do my books on Excel, but wonder whether you could point me in the right direction for a template that would be suitable, so that I can just plug in all the information, put the paperwork in date order and give it all to my accountant?

Alternatively, is that what a book keeper does and then just passes it to an accountant?

Kate :lol:

[Alpha]

I want to do my books on Excel, but wonder whether you could point me in the right direction for a template that would be suitable, so that I can just plug in all the information, put the paperwork in date order and give it all to my accountant?

Kate...this may be an 'off the wall idea' but why don't you ask your accountant if he has a suitable template.
I have developed a number of spreadsheets for clients but often try to tailor them to the way that the client works so whilst I may have something suitable its not guaranteed.

If you get no joy out of your accountant then please let me know and I'll see what I can dig out. :D

Alternatively, is that what a book keeper does and then just passes it to an accountant?

Yes basically in its simplest form a good book keeper will save you money by doing the basic work at a book keeping cost whereas many accountants(Not all I may add)will charge you a considerable premium.

The one word of warning I will add as I have posted a few times before is that there are a lot of people out there that call themselves book keepers and they are usually self taught. These people can actually cost you money as the accountant will have to sort out the mess which often costs more than if the accountant had done it in the first place.

[bitsnstuff]

Hi,

I had asked my accountant, but he won't even use email, he apparently doesn't trust computers! :shock:

I am not good at delegating (big downfall) so have just bought Quickbooks, which looks fairly self explanatory and safer than trying to set things up myself.

Thank you for your help.

Kate :lol:

[Joyous]

I had asked my accountant, but he won't even use email, he apparently doesn't trust computers! :shock:

Tell your accountant to get with the programme (no pun intended). The Revenue are taking active steps to discourage paper based forms, eg doing your self assessment on line and incentives for online PAYE filing. The same with Companies House. Ask him how much fun he had trying to get a receipt from the Revenue after hand delivering all those paper self assessment returns on 31 Jan.

Regards

Joy

[Pebble Communications]

I don't think I'd trust an accountant who was scared of computers!

[YMW]

Thanks for all teh replies. Sorry its taken dso lonmg to get back to this, I have been offline unexpectedly!

I checked the library and borrowed a few books and have a basic idea.
The only reason I asked on here is that there are pros who would know the 'best' books or information-the library had so many I wasn't sure where to start :lol:

Thansk again for the suggestions!

[creacom]

Well I am not a hotshot at bookkeeping or a great fan of paperwork so I thought I would give Duane's KashFlow bookkeeping software a try. I have to say that so far I am very impressed !

When we started out I thought I could keep the paper version up to date ok but slowly but surely it started getting out of hand ! We are on the trial version of KashFlow at the moment but already I know Im going to sign up for the year.

I might also be able to convince my business partner to do a bit of admin for a change too !! :lol:

Jacqui

[Joyous]

The only reason I asked on here is that there are pros who would know the 'best' books or information-the library had so many I wasn't sure where to start :lol:


Frank Wood - Business Accounting Vols 1 & 2. Compulsory reading for all budding accountants. If it's not in there you don't need to know it. :lol:

Regards

Joy