Now it’s time for cruise control on your business, right?  Ummmm… maybe not so much.  Whether your business is kicking into high gear right now, going into a slow period, or maintaining this is the time to do a mid-year accounting review.

Ultimately, what you want for your business are clean books. Meaning, no missing information, all cash accounts reconciled, transactions up to date.  And now is the time to clean them up before the end of year pressures are upon us.

Red flags? 

Are your books exhibiting any of these symptoms?  Missing transactions, unauthorized withdrawals, incomplete depreciation of your assets, out of date inventory, out of control business expenses, to name a few.  If you are seeing any of these it is time to get a handle on your accounting practices and books. 

Whether you work with an outside firm or are going it completely alone there are a few things to keep in mind.

Bookkeeping is a part of your business that you MUST be involved in.  Your money is too important to leave it up to others or to ignore it.  Make a commitment to being involved with your accounting and bookkeeping.

Make an appointment.  It is so vital to the health of your business that it deserves its own standing appointment in your work week.  Put it in your calendar.

Organize your documents.  While this may mean different things to variously organize-abled people you must at the very least keep all your records in one place until you are ready to sit down and tackle them.

Get it in your books!  Sometimes its easy to let little bits of information go, like what that $500 cash withdrawal paid for, but don’t.  It’s a good practice to write notes on deposit and withdrawal slips (and put them immediately in the place where your records are kept) so that when your appointment time to do bookkeeping rolls around you won’t have to rely on memory.  You do a thousand things every day, you’re not going to remember that $50 was for pizza for the crew last Friday and the rest for the cleaning lady the week before. 

And do ask for help.  An accounting firm can help you organize and create good accounting and bookkeeping practices for the rest of the year and beyond.