Monthly bookkeeping

What bookkeeping actually involves

Bookkeeping is the record of what the business did. Done monthly it is a routine that takes hours. Done once a year it is a forensic exercise that takes weeks, costs several times more, and produces numbers nobody trusts enough to make a decision on.

PayStream keeps your books current every month. Bank feeds pull transactions automatically, supplier and customer documents are captured digitally, and every account is reconciled before the month is closed. When your accountant, your bank or SARS asks a question, the answer is available in minutes rather than after a two week reconstruction.

What we process each month

• Bank and card transactions. Every account, pulled automatically through a bank feed, allocated to the correct expense or income account rather than dumped into a suspense line.
• Supplier invoices and bills. Captured with the correct VAT treatment, matched to purchase orders and payments, with the creditors ledger kept current.
• Customer invoices and receipts. Sales recorded, receipts allocated to the right invoices, and a debtors age analysis you can act on.
• Petty cash and expense claims. Including the ones staff submit late, which is why a monthly cut off matters.
• Loan and director accounts. Movements recorded correctly, because the director loan account is one of the most commonly mishandled balances in a small company and it has real tax consequences.
• Inter company transactions. Where you run more than one entity, both sides recorded so the loan accounts actually agree to each other.
• Fixed assets. Additions and disposals recorded, with the asset register and depreciation kept up to date rather than reconstructed at year end.

Reconciliation is the part that matters

Capturing transactions is not the same as reconciling. A reconciliation proves the record agrees with an independent source: the bank statement, the supplier statement, the SARS account. Where it does not agree, the difference gets found and explained rather than left to accumulate.

We reconcile the bank and card accounts, debtors and creditors, the VAT control account against what was declared on the VAT201, the PAYE control account against the EMP201s, loan and director accounts, and inventory where you hold it. An unreconciled account is not a record, it is an estimate.

Software and setup

We work in Xero, Sage Business Cloud, QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books. If you already have one we use yours. If you do not, we set one up properly: a chart of accounts designed around how your business actually makes money rather than the generic default, bank feeds connected, VAT rates configured, opening balances agreed to the last signed financial statements, and document capture set up so paperwork flows in without being emailed around.

Where an existing file is in poor shape, and after a few years of unsupervised DIY it usually is, we do a cleanup first: unreconciled items cleared, suspense accounts emptied, duplicate contacts merged, the VAT control account agreed back to what was actually submitted, and the opening balances re established. That is quoted separately as a fixed price so it never sits hidden inside a monthly fee.

What you receive

A closed and reconciled set of books each month, a trial balance, a debtors age analysis and a creditors age analysis. Where you take management accounts as well, those come with commentary. At year end the annual financial statements are a review rather than a rebuild, because the work was already done twelve times.