Book keeping confusion

[DLOT]

Hi,
I have some confusion on how to arrange my book keeping:


IN the businesslink.gov.uk they talk about

Cash book (including bank account)
Sales ledger for customers' personal accounts
Purchase ledger for suppliers' personal accounts


what's the point in having the Cash book if you put purchases and sales already in the Sales and Purchases ledgers respectively?
Also do you have a sample I can have a look at to understand how to arrange these books?
I mean number of columns and their defintions?
Many thanks in advance

DLOT

[barry.hynd]

Hi DLOT,

You should maybe go on a book keeping course. Have you heard of the concept of double entry. Basically if a customer pays you debit their account to reflect that they dont owe you that money but there is also an opposite transaction being the credit to your bank account to reflect that you now have this money in your bank.

From what I can gather you're intending to keep these books manually. I would have thought with the vast array of software options available this would be a better route but I suppose it depends at what level your business is at.

[BMS]

Hi DLOT

If you PM me I will try and explain the concept of double entry to you. It doesn't say whether you are a sole trader or Ltd company in you link, but I have a few self contained self employed accounts books which are very good at explaining how to keep your accounts.

Get in touch and we an look at you options.

[SmallBizSoftware]

I do not profess to understand double entry bookkeeping so I use Dosh Cashbook to input alll of my sales and expenses. I have not had a full year trading yet so can not say if it will produce everything that I need at the end of the year but I do hope so.

Dosh Cashbook (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1634&tag=smallbusin0a2-21&creative=6738&path=ASIN/B0006TPD8Y/qid=1116434300/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_8_5)