How do I keep good financial records?
We know what you’re thinking…typical accountants banging on about the boring stuff! Well, here are two facts that you may not be aware of in relation to keeping good financial records.
- Failing to maintain proper records is, in many cases, illegal and can lead to personal prosecution.
- Failing to maintain proper records is recognised as one of the main causes of business failure in Ireland.
Imagine taking your car on a long journey (again) without any dashboard information being available to you. You don’t know what speed you’re doing, whether any faults are developing or when you are going to run out of fuel.
You may think that you have enough driving experience to be able to gauge these things in your head but at some point you are going to get it wrong and there is nothing to tell you otherwise. You are heading for trouble.
Running your business without good financial information is exactly the same. You may think that things are okay but you have no meaningful record of what you’ve actually done and, more importantly, what’s coming up.
“I don’t have the time” is the most common excuse we hear, followed by “I’m not an accountant, I don’t know how”. In reality they are saying “I don’t think that it’s important and I can’t be bothered to sort it out”. When you consider that the alternative is prosecution or business failure then any excuse seems pretty weak.
It’s all well and good having an accounting system in place but if it’s not kept properly or up-to-date then you still can’t get hold of accurate information on your business as quickly as you need to.
PLEASE NOTE:
We know you have many priorities to address when running your business but we can help you fix this one easily…
- Get one of the many cost-effective ‘off the shelf’ accounting software solutions available – we can help you select the right one such as SAGE for example.
- Get some training, for you and/or a staff member. Again, we can help you with this.
- Set up a regular reporting system, giving you the key information for running your business and making the right decisions. We can talk you through what is best.
The solution is simple. A little training and guidance from us. It will pay for itself many times over.
Alternatively, we can come out on a regular basis and do it for you. Contact FHM and we will talk to you about the best option.