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Bookkeeping and Good record keeping

Written by: John Stewart

Article Overview: Why does good book keeping mean good record keeping? We've talked many times previously about the importance of good record keeping to save money on your bookkeeping fees.

Bookkeeping and Good record keeping

Recently a bookkeeping client approached us with an A4 archive box full of suppliers' invoices, and a couple of bank statements, for the 2008 - 2009 financial year.

Ou bookkeeping service was just given the box, and asked to record all the transactions in a bookking software package – we had no idea of the nature of the business, no opening balances – nothing.

We looked through the paperwork and proceeded to find a pattern of transactions. We’ve many years experience as bookkeepers, and were able to work out how many of the payments were made, though it proved to be quite a challenge, owing to the way that the client has been keeping the paperwork, such as:

• Incorrect cheque numbers were written on invoices
• Statements marked "paid" with no amounts detailed
• Cheques written with no payee
• Invoice amounts altered by hand
• Invoices marked "paid by Cash"
• No record of cash income from sales
• No record of what the cash deposits into the bank account represent
• Bank statements missing
• Cheque books missing
• Deposit books missing

A simple extra 30 seconds each time the client made a payment would have saved us a few minutes in trying to track down what the client had done. All those extra minutes turn into hours, and turn into increased fees for their book keeping

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Article Tags: bank statements, bookkeeping, invoices



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