The problem with doing your own bookkeeping…

It’s only natural to want to DIY a lot of your business processes when you’re starting out. You’re wanting to keep your costs down so you can bring in (and keep) more of that hard earned cash! Totally understandable!

So you start using Excel to keep track of your expenses, and a word doc or a free app that generates lovely looking invoices to send to your customers. You may have even been clever enough to setup that Square Reader you brought on special from Officeworks on the weekend. You figure out how to put up a Google or Facebook Ad, (or a tech savvy mate helps you with some of the targeting.) The sales start rolling in!

You’re winning! You’re wearing the hat of CEO, Worker, Marketing Manager, Sales Manager and Bookkeeper all in one! The Sales keep rolling in, but all of a sudden, you’re finding yourself starting to work later into the night and even on weekends. This isn’t why you went into business. You want freedom, don’t you? And more time to do the things you love?

You start to wonder…..

What was the threshold for GST registration again? $75,000?

Are you getting close to that?

Is that in a financial year or just a rolling time frame?

Which product or service you’re providing is most profitable?

How much net profit are you making as a whole?

How much have you spent on the Square Fees for that amazing machine that miraculously takes money out of your customers account and puts it into yours?

How do you even account for them?

Do you even need to, since the money coming into your account is after the fees have been taken out?

You realise you have NFI on any of this so decide to speak to a professional!!

You book a free discovery call with a local Bookkeeper near you and learn that the 75k GST threshold is on a rolling 12 months and NOT just in a financial year.

That you SHOULD be accounting for those Square fees, otherwise your income is being understated and you may have reached the GST threshold earlier than you were originally thinking!

You may even learn that your business has performed even better than you first thought, which is amazing… although now you suddenly have a massive GST/BAS debt with the ATO that you haven’t accounted for… Shit!

You also discover that your ‘Tax Invoice’ that you were creating out of Microsoft Word or that free app, are not GST and tax compliant.

The Bookkeeper lets you know that all this is made so much easier with an online accounting system such as Xero! With a bit of setup and training, you can be on your way to having your books up to date and accurate, so with a couple of clicks, you can see your most recent Profit and Loss report showing how much your business is actually making in net profit, what your best performing product or service is, how much you owe on your BAS and how much you’ve paid this year in those Square fees!

Sometimes the amount of money you may save on something is not worth the time it would have taken you to do it yourself. You also risk making costly errors that can cost you more in the long run. You may save money by doing your Bookkeeping yourself, using free apps and spreadsheets, but as your business grows these systems won’t be able to keep up. You also waste so much time on tasks that can be automated and simplified using a streamlined, online bookkeeping system and hiring a qualified Bookkeeper and BAS Agent.

At Bayshore Bookkeeping we can tailor a Bookkeeping package specific to your business, no matter what stage you’re at. By setting up an online accounting system like Xero right from the start, you ensure your business is set for success.