Can you believe we are approaching the holiday season already? Thanksgiving is only three weeks away and stores have already begun to stock their shelves with all things Christmas. The New Year will be here before we know it!
Whether you have put your bookkeeping on the back burner this year or had it on your list of things to get done and never got around to it, whether you were able to enter some data successfully or whether you started and quickly felt overwhelmed with it all, Bridging The Gap Financial Services LLC can help!
"In accounting, a "clean-up" is a series of adjustments to historical books to correct errors and improve the accuracy of financial statements"
Do You Have Messy Books?
Whether selling your business, managing cash shortfalls, or planning growth, clean accounting records are worth the effort. Save your time and avoid bad decisions with outsourced accounting cleanup services.
What Does An Accounting Clean-Up Involve?
Reconciled cash and cash accounts. This should be done once a month to match bank records.
Capitalized fixed assets. Don’t ever estimate the worth of your assets. Create a schedule to depreciate them appropriately!
Verified inventory values. If you hold inventory, a monthly count should be performed and costed to determine an accurate value for your inventory asset.
Other assets are fully accounted for. All assets’ balances should vary over time and be positive.
Reconciled liabilities. Credit cards, loans, and other short-term liabilities affect cash. Again, these balances should vary over time and match any statements from the lender.
Accurate equity balances. Often overlooked, the equity section must be accurate to avoid partner disputes or problems.
Timing:
The longer you wait, the more expensive and challenging an accounting cleanup is! More transactions, longer amounts of time between when the transactions happened to now, and other reasons all make this a more costly endeavor if you've waited. Avoid the extra costs of cleaning your books before a sale or audit and recognize the benefits of clean books all year long. Stop burying your head in the sand and go ahead and get your financials handled! We promise you'll feel SO much better when it's done and you know your books are right!
The Benefits:
Effective Decision-Making: Without accurate information, you can't possibly be making the best decision possible for your business. It is nearly impossible to improve your numbers if you're not looking at accurate and up-to-date numbers to start with! Performing a clean-up of your books allows you and your team to make effective data-driven decisions such as:
How much capital investment does your company need to hit its growth targets?
When should you hire and/or train new team members? Can your business sustain that?
Does your business have the cash flow needed to sustain fluctuations?
Can you afford to purchase that new asset or investment, really?
Real-Time Information: Find any error in your accounting before it becomes large. With accurate real-time information, the transparency created allows you to detect and correct instances of fraud, inefficiencies, and inaccuracies.
Avoid Fraud and Theft: Implementing internal controls and best practices during an accounting clean-up ensures the integrity of the financial and accounting information.
No Last-Minute Rush: Selling your business, guiding it through a turnaround, or undergoing an audit is a hectic time for any business owner. However, irregularity and errors in the books can be disastrous! Clean your books and keep them that way to reduce effort and cost.
Next Steps:
Bridging The Gap Financial Services LLC can review what has been done to date, correct any errors, and get your books in order! In addition, we provide an organized set of reports that your tax professional will need to prepare your tax returns, which will help make the upcoming tax season stress free for you.
Our main goal is to help you get your books organized so you don’t have to worry about missing information or incorrect data entry. We want you to be empowered as the decision-maker for your business and enable you to make the best decisions possible.
Don’t allow any more time to go by where you are left feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work that is continuing to pile up, get ahead of the game before the upcoming tax season, and let us help you today.
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