It is thanks to the information provided by accounting analysis that you become aware of your company's financial situation and can act accordingly. Accounting alone provides the key indicators for determining whether a business is profitable, i.e. whether revenues exceed expenses. This is a vital concept, since a company's long-term survival obviously depends on generating profits. Generally speaking, managers are often discouraged by accounting and other administrative tasks.
To remedy this, there are a number of tips to help you spend as little time as possible. Here are 6 tips to help you optimize your bookkeeping and save time.
Organize your work
Day-to-day bookkeeping is ideal. Devote half an hour or an hour a day to it, if you have to, when business slows down a little. This way, errors and oversights will be immediately noticed and can be rectified, paperwork won't pile up and the risk of loss will be virtually nil.
Paper invoices should be filed in a box as they arrive. They will then be filed automatically as they arrive. Digital invoices are also filed in a folder on your computer desktop. Contracts, leases and other correspondence are filed in their respective folders.
Separate your professional life from your personal life
So much time is wasted trying to remember where this or that sum comes from, only to find out that it's a personal expense which you then have to transfer to your account. A business card is very useful for paying business expenses. Keep it with you at all times.
Online account functionalities enable you to manage each employee's expenses in real time. Don't be afraid to hand out business cards to employees who need them. Expense reports will be much quicker and easier to process this way.
Control your banking operations
It's in your interest to have a synchronized bank account, and to be able to view it whenever you like on any device (smartphone, tablet). This way, you'll always have an overview of your cash position, so you can make the right decisions at the right time.
Make transfers, if possible instantaneously rather than deferring them, and banish cheques. In fact, on the bank statement, transfers have a heading that indicates the transaction involved, unlike cheques, which only have numbers, which you have to check each time with your cheque book.
Pay yourself a regular salary, it's quicker. If need be, add exceptional bonuses.
Create a due date calendar
Late payments are expensive. Caught in the heat of the moment, business leaders often have other concerns than keeping an eye on payment deadlines.
It's a good idea to create a due date calendar, either online (some online accounts offer this feature), or in some other way, as long as it's visible. Due dates for VAT, IS, Urssaf... can often be overlooked. Similarly, customers who fail to pay on time need to be reminded as quickly as possible.
Give up Word and Excel
Word-processing invoices run the risk of not complying with legal requirements, since invoices must follow one another and contain certain information. What's more, this method is becoming archaic. Depending on the volume to be processed, it is preferable to work with invoicing software that is able to cross-reference invoices with corresponding receipts, file invoices, export them to accounting, and much more.
Spreadsheet-based accounting also quickly becomes unmanageable. Accounting software often complements billing software. Most are compatible with those used by chartered accountants. Exports can therefore be carried out in complete security.
Opt for paperless accounting
Clearly, this is the solution of the future. It's a process that uses digitization to reduce the use of paper documents as much as possible. The benefits are numerous: lower costs, productivity gains, optimal traceability...
No more incessant printing, no more dedicated archive space, no more handling errors, no more tedious data entry... the automation of low value-added processes such as expense management, invoice entry and bank monitoring is now possible thanks to high-performance, tailored software.
Chartered accountants are gradually preparing their clients for the forthcoming mandatory electronic invoicing reform. Digitizing the rest of their processes will be a matter of course once this reform has been effectively adopted.