- Cadence
- Monthly close
- Delivered by
- Tenth working day
- Software
- QuickBooks Online or Xero, in your name
- Priced on
- Volume, not a tier
Bookkeeping that closes the month
Not a folder of receipts and not a bank feed nobody has looked at. A reconciled, closed month with a profit figure you can act on, delivered before the tenth working day.
- The point of a close
- Last month stops changing after you have looked at it
Most small businesses do not have bad books. They have unfinished ones.
Bank feeds have made it easy to have data and hard to have accounts. Transactions arrive, most get categorised, a few sit in a suspense account, nothing is reconciled to statement, and the period is never closed. The result looks like bookkeeping until somebody needs a number from it.
The month end close is the part that turns data into accounts. Reconcile everything to statement, chase what does not match instead of forcing it, bring receivables and payables current, separate owner spending, then lock the period so it stops moving. That last step matters more than it sounds: books that keep changing retroactively cannot be used to make decisions or to file a return.
We do that every month, and we write a short note about anything that looked odd, because a number with no explanation attached usually gets ignored.
What the monthly service covers.
Every month, before the tenth working day
- Every bank and card transaction categorised against a chart of accounts built for your business
- All accounts reconciled to statement, with anything unexplained raised rather than forced
- Accounts receivable and payable brought current, so you know who owes you and what you owe
- Owner draws and personal spending separated out properly instead of buried in miscellaneous
- Fixed assets recorded and depreciated rather than expensed by accident
- A closed period, locked, so last month stops changing after you have looked at it
- A profit and loss, balance sheet and cash summary, with a short written note on anything unusual
Four signs the books are not being maintained.
If the annual conversation starts with gathering documents, nothing was being maintained. It also means every decision you made during the year was made without numbers.
A healthy balance can hide unbilled work, unpaid tax and a deferred supplier. A low balance can hide a profitable business with a collection problem. They are different problems with different fixes.
Beyond the bookkeeping cost of untangling it, it weakens the separation between you and the company, which is the thing the entity was formed to protect.
Not the revenue, the profit. If the answer takes more than a few seconds to find, the books are not being used, whatever state they are in.
Common questions
It is priced on volume, not on a tier. The inputs are the number of transactions, the number of bank and card accounts, whether you carry inventory, whether you invoice customers on terms, and how many currencies are involved. Most single owner service businesses land in a predictable range and we quote it fixed for twelve months. See the pricing page.
It is common and it is fixable. We quote catch up work separately from the ongoing monthly service, we do the oldest year first so that the tax positions can be closed, and we tell you at the start what we expect to find. Catching up two years is a project with an end date, not an open ended bill.
Yes, and that is the main argument for having the same firm do both. When the person preparing the return kept the books, there is no reconciliation exercise in March and no set of questions you have to answer twice.
You do. The subscription is in your name, the data is yours, and if you leave you take it with you without a negotiation. We think holding a client's own books hostage is a poor way to earn loyalty.
Related
Books behind, or never really started?
Tell us how far back it goes. We will quote the catch up and the ongoing service separately.