How to Ensure 100% Accurate Financial Reporting

Do you find yourself with more on your hands than you can manage? When your inbox is overflowing and you’re racing against time, it’s all too easy for essential yet time-consuming bookkeeping processes to be missed: sales invoices aren’t chased up, expenses fall behind and bookkeeping software isn’t kept up to date.

There is a range of apps and software out there all designed to help business owners streamline their expenses process and capture their receipts on the go. The apps are very straightforward to use: you simply take a photo of your receipt with your smartphone – via the app – and your receipt is then saved to the apps’ related software in the cloud. Genius! So, by utilising clever software, such as our trusted favourites Wave or Xero Mobile, you can completely eliminate the need to have a pocket full of crumpled up receipts to sort through in the office.

TIP: Here’s another good way to share your expense receipts with your Virtual Assistant: take a photo of your receipt with your smartphone, or scan it, and then save to your Dropbox or Google Drive. Your Virtual Assistant can then access your receipts and file them whilst assigning your expenses as personal, business or reimbursable. So, your accounts are always accurate, up-to-date, and ready for your end of year submission and bank reconciliation.

The UK Government are in the process of rolling out a major new system, under the title Making Tax Digital (MTD). MTD will modernise and fundamentally change the administration of the UK tax system, and will make it much easier for businesses to stay on top of their day-to-day accounts. MTD will mean the end of paper accounting for millions across Britain, as HMRC becomes automated and digital. The system is designed to increase transparency regarding what is owed and what is paid, so it will be more crucial than ever to maintain up-to-date and accurate accounts. Preparations for MTD are already underway, with businesses and accountants moving online in order to improve efficiency, boost profitability and smooth the transition process.

So, what will MTD mean for you and your business? From April 2019 onwards, legislation will require businesses above the VAT threshold to set up a digital tax account and use the new MTD software to file their quarterly returns online. Full details of the plans and what they will mean for you and your business are available here.

Who doesn’t want to do more of what they love and less of what they don’t?

Many SME’s utilise the skills of an experienced Virtual Assistant in order to deftly manage their bookkeeping tasks. Virtual Assistants are sharp, skilled bookkeepers; they can provide you with an accurate, reliable and fully compliant bookkeeping service, perfectly tailored to the unique needs of your business. So, whether they’re chasing up late payments, managing your bookkeeping software, invoicing or compiling financial reports – to name just a few tasks – you can rest assured that your books are in a reliable pair of hands. Not only that but by keeping right on top of your books, you’ll know you’ve got an accurate picture of your business’s present financial position. Then when it comes to the end of the financial year, and it’s time to present your accountant with your books, you can be sure that the i’s are dotted, the t’s are crossed, and everything’s present and correct.

Virtual Assistants can support your business by taking on a wide range of your bookkeeping tasks and in turn free up your time to focus on the tasks that you and only you can do. Tasks include, but are in no way limited to:

- Create and send invoices

- Follow up on outstanding invoices

- Manage Expenses processes

- Manage Bookkeeping software

- Credit card reconciliations

- Monitoring debtors

- Compiling reports

- Tax returns

What could you achieve with all of that extra time if you delegated your bookkeeping tasks to a Virtual Assistant? What could it mean for your business? What could it mean for your work-life balance?

Share in the comments which one of these areas of assistance would make the most difference to you.

My name is Selina Johnson and I'm an elite Virtual Assistant providing Virtual Business Support to Executives. We help SME's with administrative, technical and creative support so you are free to grow your business and increase your profits.

Contact us today to discuss how we can add value to your business.

01234 602596
hello@selinajohnson.com

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