These are the source documents, both physical and electronic, that specific transaction dates and amounts, legal agreements, and private customer and business details.

Most businesses use an electronic record-keeping system to make it easier to capture information, generate reports, and meet tax and legal reporting requirements.

Copies of permits, registrations, and licenses of employees who need to do their jobs

Include assessments of staff performance and agreements between you and your employees.

Personal details, products purchased, and product inquiries that are useful for finding new customers.

Details of complaints about products, service, staff, or anything else, and steps taken to resolve them.

Including how you went about resolving disputes

Specifics of jobs and time spent on them to help with future quoting.

To make it easier to repeat advertisements and plan future advertising campaigns.

A regular review and update of your business insurance, especially when your business grows or changes

Review Available Cash

Monitor Incoming and Outgoing Payments

Record and reconcile transactions.

File and upload receipts.

Enter unpaid bills from vendors

Pay vendors

Prepare and send invoices.

Review projected cash flow.

This is the first thing that should be done every day. Unexpected expenses can pop up on a daily basis and guess when it comes to this. Instead, take a few minutes at the beginning of the day to make sure that what is exactly on hand is known.

Ask the employees and partners every morning for any expenses coming up that day to prepare for this for that day. Also, provide a good picture of the cash position for the next day.

• Each financial transaction of the business must be recorded and reconciled.

• If it is a bookkeeping software that uploads the bank feed, like Quick books Online, then most if not all of the transactions will upload automatically into the software.

• Once uploaded, make sure to categorize it correctly and reconcile it immediately. If for some reason there is a need to record the transaction separately, do so, and then categorize and reconcile it. 

• These are fundamental to proper bookkeeping on a weekly basis.

• Keep copies of all the invoices, receipts, and payments as well as the files of all the vendors, payroll, and bank statements. 

• Keep all of these files and receipts in paper form but it will be better to move the files online.

• Programs like Google Drive or Hubdoc are safer and will allow access to the files from any location. 

• Also scanning and uploading the corresponding document of all the transactions from the accounting software as back up files. For example, when reconciling the payment transactions, upload the receipts and attach them to the correct transaction.

• Keep track of each of the vendors' information, like billing dates, amounts due, and payment due dates. 

• If vendors offer discounts for early payment, check to see if cash is available and try to take advantage of that.

• Accounting software, like Quick books Online, can automate this process to help keep better track of all the bills. This is to save time and money by taking advantage of these programs.

• Once the bills are entered into the accounting software, tracking payment due dates will be very simple.

• Make sure to have funds set aside for the bills and process payments well before the due date. Whether making payments online, by mail, or in person, upload copies of the invoices sent and received unto the accounting software and the document storage account, like Google Drive.

• Remember, the sooner invoices are mailed, the sooner it will get paid. 

• Stay on top of sending invoices and try to send them the same exact day the client expected to receive them. 

• Simplify your life and save time by using the accounting software to complete this task. Create your invoices and choose when you want them sent. Save the template if it is a recurring invoice.

• Forecast how much cash you will need in the coming weeks/months to pay your bills, employees, and suppliers. Knowing your projected cash flow is also critical to making informed business decisions.

• Staying on top of your cash flow, in and out of the practice, is incredibly important.

It will help determine the business' financial position at a specific point in time and over a period of time.

Information from the accounting journal and the general ledger is used in the preparation of your business's ______: the income statement, the statement of retained earnings, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows. Information from the previous statement is used to develop the next.

•  Also called a profit and loss statement.

• It is almost uniquely important because it shows the overall profitability of your company for the time period in question.

• Information on sales revenue and expenses from both the accounting journals and the general ledger is used to prepare this. 

• It shows revenue from primary income sources, such as sales of the company's products. It also shows any revenue during the time period in question from assets, such as gains on sales of equipment or interest income.

• It also shows the business's expenses for the time period including its primary expenses, expenses from secondary activities, and, finally, losses from any activity, including current depreciation. 

• The bottom line of it is it is net income or profit. Net income is either retained by the firm for growth or paid out as dividends to the firm's owners and investors, depending on the company's dividend policy.

• It is the second financial statement to be prepared in the accounting cycle.

• Net profit or loss must be calculated before this can be prepared. After computing the profit or loss figure from the income statement, you can see what this to date are and how much will be paid out to the investors in dividends, if any. 

• This statement shows the distribution of profits that are retained by the company and which are distributed as dividends.

• As the name suggests, it is the profit retained by the firm for growth, as distinguished from earnings that are not retained but are distributed to shareholders as dividends or to other investors as the distributed share of profits.

• It is the financial statement that illustrates the firm's financial position at a given point in time - the last day of the accounting cycle.

• It's a statement showing what the business owns (assets) and what the business owes (liabilities and equity). 

• The assets must equal the liabilities plus the equity or owner's investment. The business used the liabilities and equity to purchase the company's assets.

• It shows the firm's financial position with regard to assets and liabilities/equity at a set point in time, entries on a balance sheet come from the general ledger, and the format mirrors the accounting equation.

• Assets, liabilities, and owners' equity on the last day of the accounting cycle are stated.

• Even if the company is turning a profit, it may be falling short because of inadequate cash flow, so it is just as important to prepare this like preparing the income statement and balance sheet.

• This statement compares two time periods of financial data and shows how cash has changed in the revenue, expense, asset, liability, and equity accounts during these time periods.

• This must be prepared last because it takes information from all three previously prepared financial statements.

• The statement divides the cash flows into operating cash flows, investment cash flows, and financing cash flows. 

• The final result is the net change in cash flows for a particular time period and gives the owner a very comprehensive picture of the cash position of the firm. 

• It shows the firm's financial position on a cash basis rather than an accrual basis.

• The cash basis provides a record of revenue actually received, from the firm's customers in most cases.

• The accrual basis shows and records the revenue when it was earned. 

• If a firm has extended billing terms, such as 30 days net, 60 days 1 percent, these two methods can produce substantially different results.

It is important that users of financial statements can interpret the financial statements to be able to draw valid conclusions. Typically this involves the use of comparisons to prior years, forecasts, and competitors.

Users can't compare sales and expense figures, asset and liability balances and cash flows since they are not interwoven aspects.

It is widely used to support this process of comparison.

In interpreting financial statements it is not necessary to ascertain who the users of accounts are and what information they need.

Primarily concerned with receiving an adequate return on their investment, but also with the stability/liquidity of the business.

Concerned with the security of their debt or loan.

Concerned with the trend and level of profits, since this is the main measure of their success.