What Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Bookkeeper?

Bookkeeping is a sensitive career as it involves dealing with financial records. Bookkeepers are relied upon by organisations and institutions in managing their financial records. Bookkeepers are also involved in generating financial reports for institutions and acting to reduce liabilities from non-compliance to financial obligations that an institution has in different avenues. The following are the qualification steps needed to become a bookkeeper in Australia.

Training

The journey of becoming a bookkeeper in Australia starts in a training institution probably a college or university depending on the level of study preferred. Nonetheless, the very basic requirement to become a bookkeeper in Australia is a certificate in booking or associated accounting options. The training institution should be registered and certified to offer bookkeeping studies with conformity to Australian regulations. Training in the uncertified institution and lead to your being rejected as a bookkeeper. This is therefore of great importance. Ensuring that GST and BAS units are covered in your training studies enables you to apply as a Business Activity Agent before receiving a license as a certified BAS.

Work Experience

To add on your skills and familiarise better with the outside classroom work environment, bookkeepers are required to complete 1400 hours of experience in a registered and certified BAS agent. This is to acclimate a trainee to the work environment and increase their capacity in the handling of bookkeeping tasks. You can serve as a volunteer, an entry-level bookkeeper, or even as an intern to such institutions to gain experience and complete your experience requirements hours.

Registration for BAS

With proof of your experience in the total hours taken for your internship or volunteer, you can now apply to the Tax Practitioners Board of Australia for a BAS agent. However, this step is not mandatory as a bookkeeper can opt to start their own BAS agent business or get some employment even without the BAS agent. However, applying for this agent certification increases your opportunities for employment. It also cements your being an approved bookkeeper professional.

Get Insurance Cover

In order to complete the journey to become a professional bookkeeper, you are required after completing all the other said steps to apply for a Professional Indemnity Insurance. This is a special insurance cover that cushions and secures bookkeepers from any losses incurred from false or negligence of clients in providing financial information. In order to be protected from responsibility to any of such losses, professional bookkeepers must obtain this type of insurance.

With the said steps, you can become a professional bookkeeper in Australia and covered by a code of conduct governing this career. You are also entitled to any benefits that are associated with the career including an opportunity to join a trade union.

You can choose from looking out for employment opportunities or starting your own consultant firms on bookkeeping. You can as well start a firm that can recruit other entry-level bookkeepers and make a business out of it.

Consultancy services on booing keeping are becoming popular in Australia which is raising the demand for this career. Bookkeeping career is bound to remain in the market because the bookkeeping services will always be needed as far as people and businesses remain.

Shoebox Books is a registered firm in Australia that offers bookkeeping services to individuals, corporates, and businesses. Shoebox Books serves bookkeeping service in professionalisms and high conformity to standards and code of conduct. Financial records are sensitive to every person and institution something that Shoebox Books well understands. For this reason, Shoebox Books offers services with great confidentiality to ensure that no leakages to what you are worth and your financial details. Shoebox Books is a certified and registered service meaning that it is covered under stringent bookkeeping rules in Australia. Shoebox bookkeepers can be reached through any of the stated contact methods in their site. Shoebox Books services can be received at any part of Australia.

How to Identify Where you’re Spending Too Much So You Can Cut Back on Spending

Money is crucial in the world we live in. Without it, we can’t expect to live a happy life. Whether you own a small business or have a job, you will need to manage your finances and spend money carefully if you want to survive. For businesses, it is more crucial to identify where their cash is going. It can tell them a lot about the state of the business and whether it is going in the right direction or not. For instance, if the expenses are exceeding the revenue being generated then there is a cause of concern. You might not be able to sustain the business for too long. In such circumstances, you need to find out which expenses need to be cut back on to save money. Here is how you can do it.

Create a Business Track Spending Spreadsheet

A business track spending spreadsheet is a spreadsheet that tracks the areas where you are spending money. It can help you in pinpointing the aspects of your business that are eating up the most money. You can use this spreadsheet for identifying money leaks as well. Moreover, it can also discover any errors that you are making which are costing your business money. However, its most important use is to ascertain expenses that aren’t needed by your business. This information is crucial for saving money. It can tell you exactly which expenses you need to cut down upon to save your business.

How to Create a Business Track Spending Spreadsheet

Now that you know how a business track spending spreadsheet can be useful for your business, let’s learn how you can create it. Start by choosing any spreadsheet software program that you like. Google Sheets and Excel are two of the best spreadsheet programs you can use for this purpose. Your next step should be to gather financial statements of your businesses for up to a year. This information can help you in determining the expenses you need to track on your spreadsheet.

Now, list down all your fixed and variable expenses. Put in as much detail about each expense as you can. You will have to keep adding data into your spreadsheet to make it work. Now, to calculate the spending for each expense, you need to use the formulas section of the program you are using and sum up all the entries. You will see how much money was spent on each expense. This will give you a clear picture of where your money is being spent the most. You can then cut back on spending there and save your hard-earned money.

Shoebox Books is well-known all over Australia for its excellent online bookkeeping services. Get in touch with us immediately if you want to get your business’s finances in order.

What Does Bookkeeping Entail?

Bookkeeping is an essential component of doing business these days. Without it, you would find it hard to avoid penalties come tax season. So, if you want to ensure that your business prospers and doesn’t get into trouble with the tax department then you should hire a bookkeeper as soon as possible. There are various tasks that fall under the umbrella of Bookkeeping services. Let’s take a brief look at them.

Recording of Financial Transactions

Bookkeepers deal with the recording and maintenance of all the financial transactions made by the business. This includes preserving receipts for sales and purchases made during a set period of time. It is the job of the bookkeeper to track down all the receipts and record them in a systematic manner. This data collection done by the bookkeeper is going to help in the development of financial statements later on. Moreover, aside from the receipts, there are other transactions that need to be recorded as well. For instance, payments made to vendors, loan repayments, bills and other operational expenses all need to be recorded by the bookkeeper.

Balancing the Books

Balancing the books is another important aspect of bookkeeping. It requires the bookkeeper ensuring that the assets of the company always come out to be equal to the liabilities and the business’s equity. In order to balance the books, the bookkeeper generally has to check and recheck all of the financial transactions multiple times over. They also need to keep an eye on the different cash accounts of the business and make sure that the accounts don’t show any kind of discrepancy.

Creating Financial Statements

Bookkeeping also involves the creation of financial statements. These are created by entering all of the data that has been collected by recording different financial transactions. These financial statements are needed by the accountant for creating financial reports for business management. Each financial statement focuses on a specific aspect of the business’s finances. For instance, there would be separate financial statements for revenue earned, cash flow and expenses. Some bookkeepers use the help of computer software for the preparation of these financial statements.

Shoebox Bookkeeping is a provider of online bookkeeping services in Sydney businesses. If you are looking for a trust-worthy bookkeeping service then we can help you out.

What is Double Entry Bookkeeping?

Bookkeeping and accounting are critical to the success of any business. Both processes ensure that you are on top of your finances and are able to make informed decisions regarding your business’s future. Companies usually hire bookkeepers as well as accountants to handle the financial matters of business. The task of the bookkeeper is to simply record and organize the receipts and keep track of invoices and bills. It is the duty of the accountants to make sense of the data collected and organized by the bookkeepers. They turn the raw data into business reports which are then used to determine the company’s financial standing. There are various concepts used by bookkeepers and accountants to perform their jobs correctly. One of these concepts is double entry bookkeeping.

How Double Entry Bookkeeping Works

Double entry bookkeeping is one of the fundamental methods of recording business entries. It basically means that every transaction has to be entered in two different accounts. For instance, if the company is making a sale then the transaction would be debited to both the company’s cash account as well as to its revenue account. On the flip side, whenever the company borrows an amount from the bank, the amount is to be entered into the cash account of the company and also credited to the company’s accounts payable. In double entry bookkeeping, no matter what transaction is entered, the assets of the company always equate to its liabilities plus equity. Here, assets of the company are the cash account while the liabilities and equity are the accounts payable and revenue account respectively.

Benefits of Using Double Entry Bookkeeping

There are various benefits that double entry bookkeeping offers to bookkeepers. For starters, it makes it a lot easier for you to locate data entry mistakes. Since the transactions are being recorded in two different accounts, any mistakes made during entry will become evident when the assets don’t equate to the equity and liabilities of the company. Moreover, it also provides a comprehensive record of all the transactions made by the business and their relative impact on the business’s financial standing.

Shoebox Bookkeeping offers online bookkeeping services to businesses all over Australia. Give us a call if you want to try out bookkeeping services for your business.

Bookkeeping 101

The financial aspect of a business is hugely important for its success. You can have a nice business idea but without the proper financial know-how of doing business, it won’t amount to anything. Similarly, if you don’t stay on top of your finances, you would run your business into the ground pretty soon. This is why it is essential that you take the financial side of your business seriously. You need to make sure that all your books are balanced and a record of all the business transactions is meticulously maintained. All of this comes under the umbrella of bookkeeping. Without it, you won’t be able to run your business for long.

What Does Bookkeeping Entail?

Bookkeeping is mainly concerned with the recording of data. It calls for keeping a record of all the business transactions no matter how small or big they are. You have to make sure that the data is documented in a proper manner so that it can be presented whenever needed. Moreover, it also includes storing tabs on the payments that you have to receive from other clients as well as those that you have to make to others. Bookkeeping also encompasses the creation of simplistic financial reports too. These reports include information regarding the current balance in your different accounts and details of all the expenses and income that the business is making. MYOB, XERO and QuickBooks Online are common accounting softwares utilised by small and medium businesses.

Why is Bookkeeping Important?

There are severe financial consequences for not paying attention to bookkeeping. For instance, when it comes time for you to file your tax returns, you would need to have a record of all the transactions available to you. If you haven’t done it throughout the year, you would end up having to do it in a hurry,making lots of mistakes along the way. This could result in penalties and you might end up losing out on tax refunds that you are eligible for. Moreover, you need bookkeeping to know about the current financial standing of your business and whether or not it’s headed in the right direction.

Is Hiring a Bookkeeper Necessary?

Most business owners don’t have the time or the expertise to do their books themselves. Therefore, it is best that you hire an expert that can do this job for you. There are bookkeeping services available that can help you in balancing your books for a small fee. You can also hire a full-time bookkeeper to handle your finances too.

Shoebox Bookkeeping provides quality bookkeeping services to businesses all over Australia. Feel free to contact us if you need help in balancing your books.