6 accounting tips for smooth business management
Are you looking for accounting advice to help you manage your business better? You've come to the right place.
A good entrepreneur is not necessarily a good accountant. However, knowing how to keep your accounts and manage your finances well is a guarantee of confidence for banks, customers and employees alike. Your accounting is a pillar of your decision-making process, enabling you, for example, to anticipate cash flow fluctuations.
What can you do to set up good accounting management without spending too much time on it, and with or without a chartered accountant? Here are a few accounting tips and tricks to help you get to grips with this new way of managing income and expenditure.
Tip no. 1: Prepare yourself to better understand accounting
Accounting can't be improvised, and it's a complex exercise for a novice. Except in special cases, all forms of business require bookkeeping in compliance with the Plan Comptable Général (PCG), France's regulatory accounting standard.
French regulations can be rich and complex. So be sure to find out about all the legal requirements in force, such as keeping your annual accounts, regular bookkeeping and publication of accounting records.
Don't wait until your first financial year to get your hands on the figures! As soon as you've set up your business, you need to start thinking about this issue, and prepare a chart of accounts that's tailored to your structure.
You can call on experts in this field: outsourced CFOs or chartered accountants. They can give you valuable advice on specific points. Alternatively, you can choose the chartered accountant who will take charge of your accounting.
Tip 2: Adopt the right accounting management reflexes
Business accounting doesn't happen overnight. It is essential to the smooth running of your business, and provides a real-time view of its health. Here are a few tips to help you see things more clearly:
- record all your company's accounting records as you go along: sales and purchase invoices, receipts, receipts, expense accounts, etc,
- Follow up regularly - even monthly - to make sure everything is up to date,
- Organize your accounting documents so that you can find them easily and close the books each year.
Tip 3: Anticipate accounting deadlines for better management
It's best to anticipate these deadlines, to avoid dealing with them at the last minute:
- VAT returns: monthly, quarterly or annually,
- preparation of annual financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, etc,
- income tax returns,
- drawing up pay slips and declaring social security contributions,
- annual declaration of unified social data,
- various tax declarations: professional training, apprenticeship tax, construction effort, etc.
💡 Are you an auto entrepreneur (or micro entrepreneur)? Your status gives you special accounting obligations. Discover our accounting tips for auto entrepreneurs:
Tip 4: Separate business and personal accounts
Keeping business and personal accounts separate is essential for the manager and his associates. Every business expense must be justified; it will be easier to find the items with business expenses paid with a "pro" account.
In your company, everything must be recorded separately, to avoid any abnormal acts of management or misuse of corporate assets.
In fact, since January 1, 2015, even self-employed entrepreneurs have been required to have a dedicated bank account, specific to their business activity. Under certain conditions, however. According to the Pacte law, this measure remains optional for auto entrepreneurs whose sales do not exceed 10,000 euros per year for two consecutive years.
Tip no. 5: Choose easy-to-use accounting software
Choosing the right accounting software can be a complex task, given the range of products on the market. But there are solutions to simplify the task of keeping your accounts up to date. Solutions that can also save you time. Here are just a few examples:
- Clic&Tag is an online and mobile accounting software package designed to help small businesses and the self-employed to :
- prepare estimates and invoices,
- file VAT returns,
- enter expense reports and track them via dashboards,
- benefit from the services of a chartered accountant for the rest of the bookkeeping.
- Itool Accounting is an online accounting service that helps business managers manage their general accounting:
- journal,
- general ledger,
- balance sheet,
- income statement,
- tax returns.
- Sage 50Cloud Ciel is both an accounting tool and a sales management tool. This solution offers the possibility of centralizing all data within a single tool, enabling you to :
- create and track quotes and invoices,
- track purchases, inventories and sales,
- automatically integrate processed information into the sales management solution.
In addition to the solutions suggested above, you can also opt for a business-oriented solution. Depending on your professional sector, some software suppliers offer solutions tailored to your needs. A construction company, for example, will be more likely to opt for a tool offering job costing (quantity of supplies, consumables, etc.).
These different features will guide your choice of search. Find and compare all online accounting software on our dedicated page.
Tip 6: Choose a certified accountant
Accounting for a business is not always easy, and even less so when it comes to drawing up the annual balance sheet. That's why it's essential to put the right tools in place as soon as your company is set up, to ensure that your accounting, tax and social security operations are secure.
You may also find it useful to choose a chartered accountant to support you in this task, and to provide you with expert advice. The question is: how do you choose a chartered accountant? There are a number of factors to consider:
- make sure that your chartered accountant is qualified to carry out his or her duties, and that he or she is registered with the Ordre des experts-comptables;
- determine your needs and the accounting issues you face;
- define the budget you wish to devote to this expertise.
Article translated from French