I’ve let my business finances get out of control and I don’t know where to start.

Firstly, you’re not alone, this is a problem we see all the time. You’re a business owner so you likely fill a number of roles in your business and there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done, so something has to slip. Don’t worry though, it’s always possible to get your financial records back in order and get on top of it all.

If you find yourself in a mess and you want to get it all sorted out, the first thing to do is to start getting things in order. Get all your receipts, invoices, expenses, etc, whether digital or paper and start getting them into some kind of order. This will make the next stage of getting them into some accounting software much easier. If they are in some kind of order then it will be easier to establish if you’re missing anything or if there’s anything that doesn’t seem right.

So now they are ordered, you can start getting them into your accounting software, we use Xero, and again, getting them ordered in accounts, with bank statements will help see if you’re missing anything as your software will want you to reconcile everything. This is a vital step for getting things up to date, compliant and also to see if you owe any tax, such as VAT.

Now that you have got the mess under control, with a little admin each day or each week, you can stay on top of them, keeping them up-to-date. This is really important as you’ll be able to see all manner of useful information such as cash flow, GPM, how much customers owe your business, how much you owe your suppliers and much more. There’s so much information at your fingertips when you have ordered and up to date financial information in your accounting software. This really helps you work out where the opportunities lie for your business, leading to future growth.

All the above is great, assuming you have the time to do it. If not, you could always use the help of a bookkeeper, and we love getting a hand on a mess and sorting it out. It’s one of our favourite things. If you think you need some help like this then please get in touch for bookkeeping help.