Frequently Asked
Bookkeeping is the process of tracking your business's finances. It encompasses a variety of day-to-day tasks. These include entering data, categorizing transactions and managing accounts receivable. Ultimately, the insights gained help you better understand your business's health.
Bookkeeping allows you to get an accurate picture of your business' financial health. there are additional reasons: separates business and personal finances, identifies mistakes early, simplifies business finances for tax season, organizes documents and records that you might need to get a loan or buy equipment.
Here’s what the bookkeeping process looks like for most businesses.
1. Connect with an accountant or bookkeeper
Even if you plan to do your own bookkeeping, this should still be your first step. They can recommend accounting software for your business type, ensuring you set up your chart of accounts correctly, and get you organized for tax returns.
2. Choose a system for entering transactions
The entry system you choose impacts your bookkeeping processes. You have two options: single entry and double entry.
Single-entry accounting records all transactions once, as an expense or as income. It’s straightforward and suitable for businesses without significant inventory or equipment. Double-entry accounting enters every transaction twice, as both a debit and a credit. Your business’s books are balanced when the debits equal (or cancel out) the credits.
3. Choose an accounting method
You’ll also choose between cash- or accrual-basis accounting. This will impact how your reports look.
Cash-basis accounting records transactions when money changes hands. Accrual-basis accounting records when the transaction occurs, even if no funds have changes hands yet.
4. Set up your accounting software or spreadsheet
Many business owners start with a spreadsheet. This might get the job done at first. But accounting software is a better long-term solution.
5. Track financial statements and documents
Bookkeeping requires accurate recordkeeping. That means recording transactions and saving bills, invoices and receipts.
6. Manage transactions
Sticking to a schedule is a big part of bookkeeping. At the end of each month, you’ll reconcile with your bank statement.
We provide bookkeeping to small business owners in a variety of industries. Many of our clients are service-based like consultants, therapists, freelancers, coaches and solo-entrepreneurs. Most use Quickbooks Online and have less than 100 transactions per month.
We do not provide tax filing. However, we make sure your books are tax-ready. If you have a CPA or tax preparer, we can collaborate with them and provide clean records, categorized transactions, and year-end reports.
We use QuickBooks Online and help new clients transition to it if needed. We also integrate with platforms like Stripe, Square, Gusto, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365.
No. These are self-serve tools, that can help you as you get started. They are great to help you organize your finances and learn this critical aspect of running a business. However, it requires consistency and a hand-on approach that many times is hard to maintain as the volume and complexity of your business grows.
If you are ready for hands-on help, we offer monthly bookkeeping and advisory—these tools can work alongside that too.
Light support is available for setup questions or issues using the file as designed.
If you need help customizing it for your business, we offer paid setup and advisory services.
Basic spreadsheet comfort helps, but you don’t need to be an expert.
The tool comes with instructions, sample data, built-in formulas, and locked cells to help you stay on track. Most of the work involves copying over your transactions—no advanced skills required.
