You may be wondering what a bookkeeper does. What actually happens when you work with me on a regular monthly basis and I do your bookkeeping for you? Well, first we’ll get your Xero set up and all of your selling and payment platforms connected to Dext Commerce. Then we’ll get Hubdoc set up for your receipts. Once that’s all done, this is what happens on a monthly basis:

First, I send through all of your sales and/or purchases from Dext Commerce to the correct accounts on Xero. If you’re VAT registered, I also check all the different VAT rates, from both the sales and the fees.

Next, I go on to Hubdoc where you will have uploaded your receipts for any purchases you’ve made and any invoices for sales that are outside of your selling platforms. I check all the details, make sure they’re going to the right accounts, check the VAT rates if needed and send them through to Xero.

Now I go into Xero and start off by matching up any multicurrency paperwork to GBP payments. I do this first because this takes the longest to do – it’s not just a simple push of a button. I have to find the correct payment in pounds and match it up with the correct multicurrency bill. Once that’s all done, I go through every single one of your bank accounts. This includes your main accounts (TSB, HSBC etc) as well as PayPal, Stripe etc. I match up sales coming in and payments going out with all your receipts and invoices.

If you’re VAT registered, I create a report to check the VAT rates that have come through from Dext Commerce. As we all know, software is never 100% accurate all of the time!

Once all that is done, I download a list of uncoded transactions from all of your bank accounts. These are transactions where either I don’t have any paperwork or I need some more information about them. I upload this report into your client portal in Senta and you will get an email notification. When you’ve provided me with all the information I need, I go back into Xero and update any remaining transactions.

I then start my month end procedure. I will ask you to send me the balance of your bank accounts for the previous month. If that matches with the balance in Xero, fantastic! If it doesn’t, I’ll ask you to send me a copy of your bank statement. Then I can go through and find out what’s gone wrong. Sometimes transactions don’t get brought through for various reasons. If you have a loan, I will check that the balance in Xero matches with your loan statement. I will also make sure that any interest is added correctly.

Then I run a report to check what your rolling 12-month turnover was for the last month. This is to keep an eye on the VAT threshold to see if you need to register. Or, if you have gone under the VAT threshold, whether you need to consider deregistering. Finally, I upload a report to Senta telling you what bills and invoices are still outstanding.

If you’re VAT registered, once I’ve completed the month end procedure, I run your accounts through Dext Precision. This is a piece of software that double checks your VAT rates, whether there’s any duplicate transactions, whether there are different VAT rates used for the same supplier and several other items like that. It’s another check I like to do to ensure your data is correct.

That’s it! Then on the first day of the following month the process starts all over again. It might sound like a lot of work but remember all you’re having to do is the three following things:

1. Upload receipts and invoices
2. Provide me with your bank balances monthly and possibly a statement if they don’t match
3. Double check the list of bills and invoices outstanding is correct

Everything else is for me (or your bookkeeper) to worry about, not you! Imagine having to only do 3 little things whilst someone else handles everything else to do with your bookkeeping for you. How much time would that free up in your business?

There are other things a bookkeeper can do for you as well of course, such as your VAT returns, year end, Self Assessment, Corporation Tax return etc. You just need to make sure that you choose a bookkeeper that’s qualified to do so….like me!

If you’d like to have a chat about your business and whether we’d be a good fit for each other you can contact me here. Hope to hear from you soon!