These are some simple things you can do that will make other things you or your employees do later...easier, more consistent, and more accurate.

#1 Most Beneficial Habit!
Making notes - Do it in real time!
In other words: Do it now, not later.
I used to wonder what that means..."real time"...what other kind of time is there?
Now I get it...real time is doing it now - not later.

So if you are making a purchase of materials for "Suzie's job", as soon as you get the receipt in your hand you write "Suzie" on it - that's in real time. If you wait to write "Suzie" on the receipt when you get back to the office - that's doing it later. Do it in the moment, if you do it now it's done and if not there's a pretty good chance it won't happen until you or your bookkeeper are processing the receipt AND, when you're making the purchase you know what you're buying, & why, & for whom....later you may not.

This holds true for information on any transaction. If you always act as if someone else will be processing this and you won't be available to give them the details - your books will be accurate and you'll spend a great deal less time figuring things out.

Catching Up!
Unless there is a deadline you have to meet (filing taxes, or clearing up a specific acount with client or vendor), do the most recent work first, then work on the old stuff. For instance, if you have bookkeeping for the past 6 months that needs to be caught up, start with the transactions from today...when that's done, go back to the oldest work. Then every time you work on the bookkeeping take care of the new activity first. This way you will know that you are actually catching up as you see the old work gettng done, because you know that new work is not piling up in the meantime. (Otherwise you can think you're catching up because the old work is being done, but meanwhile the new activity is accumulating.)

• look at how long it takes to receive checks once they're ordered (lets say 2 weeks)
• look at how many checks you would use in that time period (lets say 200/month, so 100 in 2 weeks, plus 20% buffer = 120)
• staple a note saying "USE THESE LAST - give to secretary - ORDER CHECKS" to the reorder form from the new package of checks.
• clip the order form and last 120 checks from the batch together & put them back with the other checks.
• when all the other checks are used up & you open this batch you'll know it's time to reorder and you'll have the order form in your hand.

• on the check stub write the inv number, or other reason for the payment
• if the check pays more than one invoice, list each with the number and amount
• on the bill('s)/receipt being paid write the check number, date, & amount paid. (Amount paid may seem redundant, but often the amount of the payment isn't the same as the bills total due - when it is the same I just circle that amount on the bill and put the other notations next to it.)

• add the asset to a list assigning an asset tracking number
• on the purchase receipt for the asset, write the make-model-serial number & asset tracking number,
• use indelible ink to write the asset tracking number on the asset itself (or use a lable maker).
• include all the data from the receipt when you enter this purchase into your books.

• double check your math. When totaling your deposit slips, use this double check that guarantees you will catch errors on the deposit slip entries (Transposed numbers's, omitted items, etc):
  • first add up the entries on the deposit slip
  • then add up the amounts directly from the actual checks.
• put detail on the slip.
  • who paid
  • check #
  • reason for payment (inv#, or "repay loan", or specify the service rendered.)
• copy the deposit slip and items being deposited
  and staple the deposit receipt to these copies
  • this way you can deposit your funds right away
    then
    when you enter the deposit later (no matter how much later) you'll know exeactly where the funds came from and what they were for,
  • you'll have proof of the source of all your deposited funds in case of an audit by the IRS, or someone else in case you pay commissions or royalties on cash receipts.
  • also important,
    if you deposit personal funds into the business, or if you deposit a loan repayment, you won't end up entering it as income because you just don't remember what was in that deposit.

• always print the reconciliation detail report (you can print the summary too if you want)
• print the general ledger detail of the account for the month or reconciliation period (if the statement period doesn't coincide with month beg/end dates, either run the report for exactly the statement period, or, run it to include the entire month plus thru the statement ending date. (So if the statement period is from Jan 4th to Feb 4th, run the report for Jan 1st - Feb 4th. Don't worry about the monthly report date overlapping.)
• staple the reconciliation and account activity reports to the statement. Or if you "printed" to pdf, then save all 3 files with "samename-stmnt", "samename-recon", and "samename-gl". You can import these into one pdf if you want but don't really need to take the time to do this last step.)

• give yourself the administrator password
• give every user their own password
• make a "guest" user with password
• if a new employee needs access before they have their own password, let them log in as guest
• when you set up the new employee with a password, change the guest user password, so that when there is another new employee logging in as guest, the previous "new" employee won't have the password.

Communication - be specific with terminology and codes
Words have meaning...but often a word has several meanings, or several words have the same meaning. Set specific words/terms for specific meanings in your work setting so that what you mean and what someone else understands are the same. For instance, posted, entered, logged, can all mean the same thing. In my office when something is written onto a paper log I refer to it as "posted", when it's keyed into quickbooks I refer to it as "entered". So the information from a receipt will be posted to the check register, then the info from the check register is entered into quickbooks, and these are noted on the information source with a symbol - either "circled P" or "circled E" - and if I ask someone if the "posted" something we are both referring to writing in on the log.

Volumnize check registers
If you keep a paper check register, on the front cover put the following info, then later when you're looking for something you won't have to flip through all those old check registers.

• bank name
• account name
• account #
• debit card #
• beginning - end transaction dates
• beginning - end check numbers