09FebBook Keeping

books

Now, you can pay someone to do this for you, alternatively, it can be cheaper and easier to do it yourself. Basically the law requires you to keep all records and receipts for 5 years and 9 months, for both your sake and theirs.
Best thing to do is stick to the KISS rule; Keep It Simple Stupid. Not that your stupid!

All you need is a copy of Microsoft Excel and to create pages where you can log all cash payments received, a log for all your purchases for the business and another log for all monies coming in and out. This will not only be able to help you complete a Tax Return later in the year but it helps you see in black and white, whether you have made a profit, or loss.

To save you some time, I’ve attached some starters which I use myself. You will need Excel in order to open them.

Cash Book
Expenses
Sales & Purchases

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  1. 1 Mike Harmon09 Feb 2008

    I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.

    Mike Harmon

  2. 2 H19 Mar 2008

    Just for the record, these also work in OpenOffice - so if you’re a Linux or Mac user (or even a Win user who happens not to have office), you can play with them for free ;)

    Good effort.


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