Accounts And Where To Start

MonkeyGirl

I really need to get the accounts in order but I'm not sure where to start. Once I know what I'm doing I'll be fine I just don't know how to start.

So does anyone have any ideas please or just basic advice? It's been years since I did accounts and since then I've become ill and forgotten a lot of things including this . Please help.

Thank you

MonkeyGirl

skylight

What sort of accounts do you need? Listing individual sales, or just money in and where its spent?

I do all mine (because I'm a small firm) on excel - listing out invoices, who to and how much (with a seperate column of when they paid!), and then I list seperately the income/expenditure month by month - that all "point" to a totals summary page - Its works for most of my smaller clients

Summary page then shows a total of my income to date and all my outgoings to date and seperates my outgoings - works for me and self assesment!

If you get desperate I can send you a blank copy - just PM or email me.

Or you could look at buying some software - like Sage instant accounts - I think its about £100 from Amazon, but great for smaller businesses.

Hope its of some sort of help!

MonkeyGirl

I just need ins and outs really as we get donations in and out we have costs like webspace etc. The thing I don't want to do is spend anymore on the site so I need a free way of doing it I don't mind buying an accounts book but other than that I'd rather not buy software and stuff etc. Its things like headers I'm not certain of and the best way to display things as well. Should I do it on a one spreadsheet / account book and split the page it into two columns say left side in and right side out or do two seperate spreadsheets / account books one for in and one for out?

skylight

Sorry it took so long to reply - kids playing up!!

You could quite easily have an exercise book with a line down the middle and ins on one side and outs on the other - with a running total on the right hand side (basically it would look a bit like your bank statements)

You would have to make sure that you put the date in and the each item is listed in the same way (ie - broadband costs - January it says Broadband, February it says AOL) Sounds obvious - but you'd be surprised!!!!!

I've put together a basic spreadsheet - a bit along the lines described above, I've emailed it to you.

Hope its okay.

Savvy_Sue

Having done accounts both on Excel and in multi column accounts books, I'd say go for Excel every time. haven't used Sage or anything like that so can't comment.

My reason is that if you write it all down on paper you will spend hours adding it up manually and trying to make the bally columns reconcile with your bank statement. You'll write something down wrong, and then you'll have to correct it, and you won't be able to read your figures, and it'll end in tears.

Whereas if you set your Excel sheets up right, the computer will do the adding up for you, and if it doesn't reconcile there are auditing tools which will show you where the sums are coming from, and if you make an incorrect entry you can change it etc etc etc. Even if you don't set your sheets up right first time, you can change them without too much grief. You can add extra columns if you find a significant amount of income or expenditure is dedicated to something in particular.

However at work we use both systems: we write down in a very simple In / Out book all the money which comes in and all the money which goes out. The treasurer collects these sheets and enters them into Excel, she decides which 'headings' income and expenditure need to go under and prepares the final accounts from there.

have just seen Charlotte's last post, she's probably got you sorted, but the combination of paper and Excel I've described might suit you.

All the best with it! Accounts aren't that hard, even for the non-numerate (and I should know!)

katskorner

charlotte664 wrote:

Sorry it took so long to reply - kids playing up!!

You could quite easily have an exercise book with a line down the middle and ins on one side and outs on the other - with a running total on the right hand side (basically it would look a bit like your bank statements)

You would have to make sure that you put the date in and the each item is listed in the same way (ie - broadband costs - January it says Broadband, February it says AOL) Sounds obvious - but you'd be surprised!!!!!

I've put together a basic spreadsheet - a bit along the lines described above, I've emailed it to you.

Hope its okay.

Charlotte is there any chance you could send me that spreadsheet to as I am in the same situation? I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

MonkeyGirl

Thank you both SO much for your replies. Charlotte your spreads sheets were a great help and I understood them as well so I hope you don't mind but I'm gonig to use it. Thank you again it really was a great help now all I need are the bank statements and I'm sorted :T .

bargainhunt_3

The idea of Excel is a good one, but if you want to save yourself from buying MS Office, why not try Open Office? Its free and availaale for all computing platforms. It comes with a spreadsheet, word processor, presentation manager and I think a couple of other things as well. It's not quite a polished as MS Office but it will save you over £100.

Try it at: https://www.openoffice.org

I use it all the time these days and have saved myself some much needed cash.

Best,

rod

MonkeyGirl

I already have MS Office on my pc. I just havent *played* with anything other than word. But thankyou for you advice I shall tell my mum about it as not sure if she has office.

CurryKing_2

Charlotte 664 - I've pm'd you as well as im in the same boat as these guys!

Neil

chris73

Although self assessment is fairly straight forward for the sole trader it can be daunting when you get the self assessment forms. For this reason, even for a small business it is advisable to have an accountant, and a good accountant should easily save you twice his / her annual fee in tax, and will know every method (legally) there is to maximise your profts and minimise your tax liabilities.

If your business is fairly small and you are either a family partnership or a sole trader then there are many online 'fixed price' accountants who can prepare your books and fill in your tax return for a set fee.

One such company is called Tax Watchdog and they can do your complete yearly accounts for around £186.00 (or £85 just for filling and submitting the return and calculating how much tax you need to pay).

If you are not already aware of it, their main website http://www.taxbuddies.com/ is full of lots of free advice on Tax.