By staying ahead of tax deadlines, monthly bookkeeping checklist you can help your clients avoid costly mistakes. This diligence also supports the overall financial health of the clients by preventing disruptions due to compliance issues. Staying on top of tax payments and filing requirements helps build trust with clients and regulators. QuickBooks Online and Xero are excellent choices for this task, as they offer real-time bank feeds and built-in reconciliation tools to streamline the process. BookkeeperLive provides affordable bookkeeping and accounting services tailored to your business goals. At the end of each quarter, it’s a good idea to review your business’s budget to ensure that actual expenses align with projections.

The Essential Steps in a Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist

However, please review each Bookkeeping for Chiropractors task carefully and feel free to edit them to fit your firm’s unique needs. Next, If you have any past due invoices, there is no better time to send them a reminder. On the other hand, confirm that you’ve settled all your vendor invoices or reach out to them if need be.

• If you have employees, payroll is likely one of your largest recurring expenses.
• Accounts receivable, on the other hand, is all payments owed to a company by their customers for a provided good or service.
• Experience quick and easy bookkeeping with Link My Books by starting your 30-day free trial today.
• You can then determine where the money went and identify errors, employee fraud or theft.
• Some businesses prefer to generate financial statements quarterly instead of monthly.

#4: Review Aged Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Reports

• Here’s everything you should include in your monthly bookkeeping checklist so you can be confident in the process and your bookkeeping services.
• This ensures that all your transactions are accurately recorded and helps detect any discrepancies or fraud.
• Check and update your records for bills, invoices, and other outstanding payments you owe.
• Taking stock of your company’s performance and health is essential for further planning and strategizing, so you must ensure the data presented is accurate.
• Without effective bookkeeping, a business may struggle to stay organized and avoid penalties, cash flow issues, or tax problems.
• Turn your receipts into data and deductibles with our expense reports that include IRS-accepted receipt images.

You’ll have a clear view of everything happening—who’s responsible for tasks, when they’re due, and why they’re important. You may need to implement retained earnings some regular schedules in place for monthly adjusting journal entries and some of these can be automated. You may want to consider Wagepoint if you’re for a Canadian-based payroll and HR system.

#6: Calculate and Record Sales Tax

Keep an eye on outstanding payments from customers to maintain a healthy cash flow. Our tool integrates seamlessly with your sales channels and accounting platforms, automating the bookkeeping process from start to finish. Regularly reviewing them ensures you stay on top of your obligations, avoid late fines, and maintain good relationships with vendors, creditors, and tax authorities. Monitoring these daily transactions gives you a clearer picture of your business’s financial situation, helping you spot trends and manage budgets. We created ourMonthly Bookkeeping Checklist Template with feedback from bookkeepers like you.

Why It’s Important

Log all income sources, including sales, services, and any other revenue streams. Link My Books is a robust accounting solution that automates many of these tasks. It automatically applies correct information, such as tax rates specific to each country. These reports offer a financial glimpse into your business and help you track your performance over time.

To help you withthat, we’ve compiled a full list of checks and balances that have worked formost of our clients drawn from the manufacturing, real estate, and IT sectors. I’m an entrepreneurial CPA that founded Xen Accounting, a100% cloud-based accounting firm, in 2013. Following its acquisition in 2018,I started Future Firm to help accountants fast-track the growth of a modern, scalable accounting firm of their own. Create an open line of communication by inviting clients to ask questions about their financial reports. Regularly tracking stock levels helps your client avoid overstocking or running out of items, equipping them to meet customer demand.

By consistently keeping track of income, expenses, and taxes, a business can ensure smooth operations and avoid unpleasant surprises during tax season. This checklist breaks down the essential daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks that small businesses should follow to keep their accounting and bookkeeping in order. One of the most important tasks on your checklist is reconciling your business’s bank accounts with your financial records. This process ensures that the transactions in your books match the transactions listed by your bank, preventing discrepancies and identifying any errors. Reconciliation should be done monthly to make sure that your financial reports are accurate and up to date. At its core, bookkeeping allows a business to track what it owes and what it is owed.

Want to be at the top of your bookkeeping game all year long and equip your employees with the right tools? You can download 32 workflow templates here for free – it includes a bookkeeping checklist template that will make accounting easier for you going forward. Reviewing and updating accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) ensures that you are aware of any outstanding invoices and bills. Ensuring timely payments of both incoming and outgoing funds helps improve cash flow and avoid late fees or penalties. This is the process of comparing your income and expense records with your bank statements and making sure they match. This is important to ensure there aren’t any missing transactions or inconsistencies.