One of the most frustrating complaints that all Accountants have with small business bookkeeping and owners is the lack of organisation with the recording keeping, and the handling of documents in general.

When you are running a business, it can be very hard to find time to actually work on your business and not just in your business. But being organised with all your business’s source documents is one area that should not be neglected.

When I refer to source documents I mean the following:

•    Purchase invoices
•    Expense invoices
•    Sales Invoices
• ·  Contracts & Agreements

Being organised in this area will bring many benefits, there is nothing worse than the feeling that all your paperwork is on top of you. And conversely there is no better feeling than having all your important documents properly indexed and easily found. All purchase invoices in month order, sales invoices in month order and consecutive order.

Your organised paperwork should be a fine tuned machine, whereby you can lay a hand to any document required fast, it’s worth putting the time and effort into this area to make your business more efficient.

1.  Customer invoice queries can be dealt with quickly – giving the impression to your customers you respond fast and effectively.
2. Purchase Invoice queries and errors can be dealt with effectively as well, picking up any mistakes that could cost your business money.
3. Year End work for your Accountant can be handled with minimum fuss. Ask any Accountant if you hand them a fully reconciled, indexed set of records they will love you. Not only that most Accountants will be able to do the work quicker and reduce your bill accordingly
4. Should you have a visit for the Taxman, knowing that all your records are up together can make you sleep a lot better at night.

Yes dealing with paperwork can be boring, but it’s a necessary and vital part of running your own business. If there is one thing that makes all Accountants depressed its dealing with a bag of unsorted invoices at the year end, with the business owner hoping that the Accountant will work magic and sort it all out for him. The Accountant then has to spend unnecessary time sorting all documents out before he can even begin to work on the final accounts.

Stay on top of your paperwork and do a little bit everyday.

Duncan Jones MAAT

Managing Director of Revoy & Jones Limited