Spreadsheets are another tool that businesses use to manage their financial records. This means that businesses must ensure that their accounting data is up-to-date and accurate. Control accounts are used to ensure that the information in the subsidiary ledger is accurate and complete. Income and ex...

This is especially true for organizations with hundreds, or even thousands, of employees on the payroll. Regardless bookkeeping of the specific need, the best automated payroll systems will make it easier than ever for an employee to manage their data. An automated payroll system is a software platf...

Some people use the term gross margin to mean the gross profit percentage, which is the amount of gross profit divided by net sales. Expressing the gross profit as a percentage of net sales allows the company’s executives and financial analysts to see if the company was able to maintain its sellin...

Think of it as “cost of goods sold” for service providers. If you have W-2 employees that you provide retirement plan options to, this is where you record those costs, including your employer contributions. Do you have a mortgage for an office building or warehouse? The IRS can use this document...

Bookkeepers keep track of both liabilities and expenses, and more. We use the long term debt ratio to figure out how much of your business is financed by long-term liabilities. If it goes up, that might mean your business is relying more and more on debts to grow. A liability is anything that’...

If new funds are needed, the cashier writes a new check to fund the petty cash drawer and takes, in exchange, the receipts from the purchases that depleted the cash. Ananya heads to her desk and opens the petty cash box—allocated specifically for urgent, small-scale needs like this. She quickly wi...

This generally takes place at the end of the month as part of the account closing process. This would be immediately before a business puts out its monthly financial statements. A business will observe the money leaving its accounts to calculate whether it matches the actual money spent. Restaurant ...

I advise firm owners to find software that will let them add notes to a task so that when they do the task, and it recurs again, Accounting Periods and Methods they have the same notes to remind them how to do it.” Aside from saving you time and mental energy, workflow templates ensure you [&h...