10 Ways to be more organised
Wow I’ve made it to week 3! - not sure if I’m going to keep up with this weekly but we often start with alot of ideas at the start of a project and its important to keep the momentum going, writing isn’t something that comes easily to me but I know the more I practice the easier it will become (I hope)
Today I’m going to share an overview of 10 areas to consider when organising your bookkeeping practice:
1. Introduction: The Importance of Organization in Bookkeeping
Running a business is complicated: your spinning multiple plates whilst also supporting clients with one of the most important aspects of their businesses too. With bookkeeping being very much deadline heavy, being organised is crucial in a bookkeeping practice. Bookkeepers manage multiple clients, need to keeping track of deadlines, and handle large volumes of financial data, so it’s time to get organised.
How I can help: I promise to grow this website and blog into a resource with all the tips, tools, and strategies you might need to improve your practice, alot will be free but some more time saving items will soon be available to purchase on the website.
2. Assess Your Current Organisation Level
Self-Evaluation: Are you consistently meeting deadlines? Do you struggle with finding documents? How efficiently are you managing client communications? Could you handover task to staff and know they would be done the way you want?
Common Pitfalls: Often bookkeeping practices start off with one person and the common problem is getting too busy before you think about writing your processes, which makes training new staff very time consuming or if not careful unsuccessful, if you’ve got messy file management, inconsistent processes, and lack of workflow automation, then this website is here to help you.
3. The Foundations of an Organised Bookkeeping Practice
Client Information Management: Keeping an up to date and secure record of your clients details is not only helpful but also nessary to meet your professional bodies regulations and GDPR rules. Creating a centralized database (Excel is a good place to start) or using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.
Document Management: Organising your documents in a systematic way is key to time and stress saving! Come up with a filing structure to managing financial documents, whether digital or physical. These days cloud storage offers an affordable and safe way with easy access for you and your team, without the need for regular backups.
4. Setting Up Efficient Processes and Workflows
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): The creation of SOPs for repetitive tasks such as invoicing, payroll, and tax preparation. These streamline operations and ensure consistency.
Task Management Tools: Introduce task management tools like checklists,client trackers andsimple to-do list to keep track of daily tasks and client deadlines. There’s plenty of software out there to help with this but you can’t beat a simple excel document to get the steps nailed first.
5. Utilizing Technology to Stay Organized
Accounting Software: There are endless benefits of using accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, or DEXT for automating data entry and generating reports. This is definitely going on the list of future blog posts.
Integrations and Automation: There are an overwhelming amount of softwares out there such as Zapier that can be set up to automate workflows to reduce manual work and errors.
6. Time Management Strategies
Time Blocking: time-blocking is a method to dedicate specific times of the day or week to tasks like client meetings, bookkeeping, and professional development.
Prioritisation: It’s important to prioritise tasks based on deadlines and client needs, using methods like the Eisenhower Matrix or the ABC method.
7. Creating a Routine for Regular Review and Maintenance
Regular Check-Ins: Schedule regular reviews of your processes, client accounts, and overall organisation to ensure everything is running smoothly.
Continuous Improvement: The task of organising your business is sadly never complete! we are always looking for ways to improve our systems and stay updated on the latest tools and practices.
8. Conclusion: Start Small, Stay Consistent
Little and often: Organising a bookkeeping practice is a continuous process. Small, consistent efforts lead to significant improvements over time, remember to spend time weekly working on not in your business.
Join my mailing list: If you want tips and hints on ways to make small steps to being more organised,you’ll also be the first to know when we start adding time saving checklists and processes to the website.
Make one small change: start with one small organisational change this week.
9. Next Steps: Future Content
Preview: Coming next I’m going to take a deep dive on checklists and to do lists, feeling like the list just keeps growing?
10. Dont be a stranger, I want to hear from you
Questions for you: I want to know from you guys; What’s the biggest organisational challenge you face in your bookkeeping practice? leave me a comment or reach out with your thoughts.
Thank you for reading
Stacey