Accounting Software for Small Business

Posts Tagged ‘accounts’

An e-book named “The A B C of Bookkeeping”. It approaches the understanding of double-entry from a completely new angle compared to the stereotypical text book. The book is centred around a unique diagram which clarifies when to debit and when to credit.
Sme Owner or Manager, Accounting Students, Accounts personnel

Sales, Stock and Accounts Management Program is a very powerful tool for Invoicing, Inventory Control, Sales and Purchase Control and Accounting. With its powerful features it is ready to meet requirements of all types of business and trading houses specially the business houses with their large product and customer base. HiTech SSAM will streamline your business accounting in such a way that through improved management you will see the profitability of your business grow. The design of HiTech SSAM (Sales, Stock and Accounts Manager) is modular. The data from various modules flows in Accounts module and all your final reports are produced at a touch of a button. This modular program keeps detailed information about the Supplier, customer and accounts you deal with. Apart from the preparing and printing the vouchers HiTech Financial Accounting keeps your accounts uptodate without any effort. Numerous reports are available for viewing and printing where you can keep an eye on the vital indicators about your business. Being Window based HiTech Financial Accounting is in tune with the latest computer software technology and will be a long time companion to your profitable business.HiTech Web Portal Websites: www.HiTech-on-Web.com ** www.Accounts-on-Web.com ** www.e-trading.bz ** www.AccountingSoftware.bz ** www.OnlineAccounting.bz ** www.WebsiteDesign.bz ** www.SoftwareDevelopment.bz ** www.BusinessSoftware.tv ** www.BusinessAccounting.in ** www.FreeAccounting.in ** www …

There is a major difference between sophisticated accounting software used by larger businesses for financial control purposes than is required for small business where a simple bookkeeping spreadsheet is sufficient.

An accountant needs to not only ensure the financial records are accurate but also retrieve any part of the accounting records to answer accounting questions on the accounts, provide a legal basis for the transactions and report the financial statements at regular periodic intervals.

Accounting is a term that embodies a whole raft of financial activities while bookkeeping is specifically literally the keeping of books of account. For non limited companies that do not need to produce a balance sheet then a simple income and expenditure account can be produced much simpler using single entry bookkeeping principles.

Less financial control is often required from small business accounting software as the bookkeeper is often the owner manager who already has an intimate knowledge of each transaction. Books are still required for tax purposes and a solid requirement of preparing a set of financial books for tax purposes is that each entry is supported by third party evidence.

The prime accounting documents providing back up are sales and purchase invoices or receipts and bank statments. Financial transactions where no receipt exists can still be entered in the business books although all transactions not carrying third party evidence could subsequently be disallowed for tax purposes and certainly would be if the amounts entered indicated unusual income or expenditure.

Producing an income and expenditure statement using single entry bookkeeping is little more than making two lists of financial transactions. Those lists being one of sales income received from sales invoices or receipts issued to customers and the other of purchase expenditure being from purchase invoices received from suppliers.

To record sales income it would not normally be sufficient to simply add up the total of the invoices as such a summation does not leave an audit trail of the items which have been included. A written list of sales invoices does provide an audit trail.

Sales accounting for a small business accounting purposes can be either a manual list of the sales invoices or by using a spreadsheet package a list can be made on a bookkeeping spreadsheet. Basic formulae canh be used to add up totals in a bookkeeping spreadsheet.

The essential information to enter for a sales invoice would be the date of the sale, name of the customer, sales invoice number if applicable and optional a brief description of the item sold. In the next column would be the total sales invoice amount. Additional columns might be required to account for taxes on sales such as vat in the uk or sales taxes.

A further small complication might be if at the discretion of the small business owner additional information was required from the bookkeeping records to indicate the totals of the different types of products and services then additional columns could be incorporated to enter the net sales figures in these columns.

There it is then, a simple list of sales invoices to satisfy the sales accounting requirements for a small business where a balance sheet is not required.

On the expenditure side of the business the bookkeeping can also be a simple list of the purchase invoices and receipts showing the amount spent. The list should also produce an audit trail by showing the date of the purchase invoice, name of the supplier, purchase invoice for identification purposes and the total amount spent.

Usually tax returns are the main purpose of producing small business accounts and invariably some analysis is required to show what the expenses have been spent on. The small business owner can insert additional standard columns to the bookkeeping spreadsheet.

The expenditure analysis columns do not need to be a different column for each type of expenditure. It is better to set up and group the analysis columns in general headings which can accommodate all the expenses.

These bookkeeping analysis columns would include stock, other direct costs, premises costs, general administrative costs, transport and delivery costs, repairs and maintenance, travelling and hotel costs, motor costs, bank and legal costs and other expenses. It is better not to enter too many items under a general heading of other expenses as this is more likely to be investigated as the type of expense has not been precisely identified.

One important column to also include is for asset purchases as fixed assets usually have different tax rules applying to the claim of the expense against tax and should be separated from other expenditure.

Having set up two bookkeeping spreadsheets the task is then to produce the income and expenditure account by collecting the totals of each of the analysis columns. The sales total is the sales turnover from which is deducted the totals of each of the expenditure classification totals with the result being the net profit and loss of the business.

Where stock is bought and sold a further adjustment may be required to account for the difference between opening and closing stock. This is done by taking a physical stock check and valuing the stock at the start and end of the financial period.

On the income and expenditure account adjust the stock purchases figure by adding the value of the opening stock and deducting the value of the closing stock. The result is not the stock purchases total as shown in the bookkeeping spreadsheets but the cost of the goods which have been sold to produce the sales turnover being reported.

Simple bookkeeping for a small business accounting purposes can be two lists of sales and purchases supported with sales invoices and purchases invoices.

i have to maintain — purchase register, sales register, stock register, day book, ledger, cash book, bank book etc

I work for a manufacturing company. We built one of our own products for our own use at the company. We use peachtree accounting software. We want to show that the product was built and taken out of stock and the cost involved in building that product but we do not want to Invoice and pay ourselves for it. We also want to show that it is now an asset. How would we go about doing this in Peachtree? Or any other accounting information would be great.

Can anyone recommend a very good easy to use accounts software for a small business?

I am looking for an easy to use, reasonably priced small business software system. I need it to have a good stock control system and to be able to produce purchase orders. There seem to be so many around and I havent a clue which is best. Can anyone help!