Accounts & Bookkeeping

·       Undertake a full review of your accounting software every few years. You may end up with a better software package that can help improve your business.

·       Ask potential software vendors to list what functions their software performs, including what reports they produce.

·       Ask potential vendors whether their software is in the ‘cloud’ (online) as this will help you avoid having to do updates and other tasks.

·       If considering moving to new software, enter real data from your business into your preferred software and play around before making a decision.

·       Review chart of accounts

·       Regularly check data entry for quality.

·       If possible, separate “cash handling” from “data entry” to minimise potential for fraud.

·       Where possible, implement a live feed between your bank and your system to reduce handling and transcription errors.

·       Consider using electronic workflow systems or apps such as Shoeboxed, Smart Receipts and One Receipt that help you digitise accounting records, including invoices, and transfer that data into your accounting system to reduce the need for manual data entry.

·       Dispose of old/slow moving stock.

·       Write off excess stock.

·       Review purchasing policies to prevent over-spending on stock.

·       If stock is a high cost item, consider using software the tracks stock and is integrated with your accounting software.

·        Bill clients regularly or at key milestones.

·        Regularly review work-in-progress for “bottlenecks”.

·        Invoice as soon as your good or service is delivered.

·        Consider referring bad debts to collection agents.

·        Undertake a credit check of new debtors.

·        Renegotiate trading terms with consistently slow payers.

·        Contact slow payers early.

·        Reconcile payments promptly and regularly to identify and resolve discrepancies.

·       Make sure your sales staff are aware of the debtors position on all sales calls to assist with collection process.

·       Have two people undertake the reconciliation. These people should not be the same people who handle cash.

·       For high volume cash businesses, reconcile daily.

·       Identify customers with large outstanding amounts and follow up.

·       Reconcile suppliers owed money with list of approved suppliers.

·       Reconcile payments with other records, such as purchase orders.

·       Have someone other than the person who enter creditor invoices check what is due and payable.

·       Review that payments are in line with trading terms.

·       Check the bank account details of suppliers quarterly to reduce the risk of payment going to another account.

·       Do an asset stocktake to ensure you still have the assets that are on your books.

·       Identify obsolete, unusable or written-off assets. Ask your CPA to adjust balances and/or see if such assets can be turned into cash.

·       Don’t over-invest in new capital equipment without an appropriate payback. Speak to your CPA before making such an investment.

·       Make adjustments quickly in the next activity statement.

·       Operate equity accounts in accordance with the partnership agreement.

·       Try to avoid large imbalances in the amounts contributed by or retained by each partner.

·       Encourage staff to take leave regularly – avoid a large build-up of entitlements.

·       Consider a reserve to fund leave liability.

·       Comply with legislation regarding frequency of payment, choice of fund and reporting to staff. See https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Super-for-employers/Paying-super-contributions/ for more details.

·       Ensure employee declarations are up to date.

·       Comply with legislation regarding frequency of payment of PAYG withholding to the tax office. See https://www.ato.gov.au/business/payg-withholding/ for more details

·       If you have an employee who is about to give birth or has just given birth, you may wish to opt-in to provide the Australian government’s paid parental leave to your employee. See http://www.humanservices.gov.au/business/services/centrelink/paid-parental-leave-scheme-for- employers/opting-in ).

·       Use foreign exchange rates from an official source, such as the Australian Taxation Office.

·       Speak to your CPA about how you can manage your foreign exchange risk.

·       Involve your accountant, or a specialist valuer as required.

·       Review forward orders as it will help you plan for any short-term need to expand or contract your business