The Ultimate Guide to Small Business Accounting

Accurate accounting is the backbone of every successful small business. Scratch that. It’s by far the most important part of running any small business. If your accounting is out of whack, your small business will suffer. As a small business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in the fun side of running a business, like tweaking your marketing or spending hours on hours designing the perfect product or service. However, to be successful, you need to understand your numbers. You need immaculate record keeping. You need to understand regulations. You need to understand profits and losses.

Whether you have a bookkeeper or an accountant handling your financial transactions and producing financial statements, or if you’re trying to juggle the numbers on your own – you need to know what’s going on with your company’s financial health. So, what do you do? To help owners and entrepreneurs alike, we’ve created the Ultimate Guide to Small Business Accounting. This eBook is perfect if you are working with a bookkeeper or an accountant and need an understanding of their responsibilities.

In this eBook, we cover the fundamentals of small business accounting:

• Basic Knowledge: Learn about The Balance Sheet, The Profit and Loss Statement and The Cash Flow Statement, which are the 3 classic financial measures that all businesses can be judged by and that should be included in your business plan.
• Accounting Methods: Learn about the two types of accounting methods and determine which will be most suitable for you and your small business. The Cash Basis may be easier to understand, but the Accrual Basis is mandatory by the IRS if you hold inventory.
• Activities & Timelines: See what tasks need to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual timeline in order to keep  your accounting practices streamlined and organized. For example, daily tasks would include recordings all transactions, whereas monthly tasks would include bank reconciliations and payroll management.
• Types of Taxes: Learn about the types of taxes you will have to plan for as a small business owner. Some examples of taxes could include income taxes, employment taxes and various federal forms.
• Required Documents for Tax Preparation: From basic financial statements to meal and travel expenses, figure out what documents you’ll need to have prepared for your accountant.
• Tax Mistakes to Avoid: Taxes can be tricky, but this section will help steer you in the right direction in terms of mistakes to avoid when filing your taxes, like combining personal and business expenses or not choosing the right business structure (choosing to set up as an S Corporation instead of a C Corporation).
• Bank Reconciliation: In order to better understand your cash flow position, bank reconciliations need to be done on a daily or monthly basis, and can help you locate and correct errors.
• Top 5 Do’s and Don’ts: A summary of the top 5 do’s and don’ts for new business owners.

Please click on this link “The Ultimate Guide to Small Business Accounting” to download the ebook.