For those starting out in business, or for those that leave all the admin to accountants – here is some basic information about what, why and how to use a cashbook. We call it “My Money” for simplicities sake, but the common accounting term is “Cashbook”
WHAT
A cashbook (we call it My Money) is a place to record your bank account transactions, and code them for your accountant. For example, here is a bank account entry:
“1/4/2007 Warehouse Stationary $56.90″
The cashbook will take this entry and add the appropriate categorization for your accountant:
“Stationary Expenses”
WHY
With a cashbook you and your accountant can keep track of your expenses in a way that categorizes them for tax & performance reporting. If you don’t do this now with a software product or manually you will be paying your accountant to do this.
The key thought here is that if you spend less money on accountancy that does your cashbook entries, you have more to spend on good advice. Your accountant is a big part of your business and your budget isn’t unlimited so the more you can do on the admin side before your accounts get to him / her the more strategic & coaching advice you can receive.
HOW
With the advent of a more advanced Internet, we can now have a cashbook the Internet instead of requiring PC-based software (expensive, hardware dependent, only accessible in one location). The potential for automation is also enhanced through links to your bank to get the bank information and automatically code it for you. This can happen when you aren’t around! No need to have a computer on… Hello flexibility! Also, you save money through a subscription based service instead of a large upfront fee plus a support cost. We are working on an automatic bank link feature -will keep you posted.
If you sign-up to a 1place account, you will get a cashbook feature (and can trial if for free). At the moment you are required to download your statement from your Internet banking account and then upload it to 1place cashbook. This takes about 2 minutes for someone familiar with their Internet banking. You only need to do it once a month or whenever you need to check on paying performance.
NEW USERS. TRIAL IT WITH 1PLACE!
If you have a 1place account already login and you will see the “Cashbook” tab. Click that and load your statements on
Also
It links to your invoicing on 1place. This means you can link not only expenses but also deposits to your customers. This way you can keep track of customers accounts and not have to use two systems (one for invoicing & one for accounts)
Useful Links:
www.startrungrow.co.nz
www.biz.org.nz
You can also contact us to get more information on the 1place cashbook product.
