BUSINESS ADVICE • 8 MARCH 2021 • 4 MIN READ

How to set up your accounting system and financial controls

SECTIONS

Choosing your accounting system

Build your chart of accounts

Connecting your accounting system with your accounts

Standard internal controls

Manual things you’ll still need to do

Financial reports to run

Let’s walk through the process of getting started.

Choosing your accounting system

For most small businesses, off-the-shelf solutions like Xero, MYOB or Quickbooks work well.

If you’re still in the process of choosing a system, just have a chat with your Beany accountant!

Build your chart of accounts

Once you’ve chosen your system, you’ll need to build your chart of accounts. Your software will typically give you a standard set of codes to customize, but it’s still worth understanding exactly what a chart of accounts is:

A chart of accounts is a set of groups you use for categorising your business transactions (both incoming revenue and outgoing expenses). To give you an idea, a chart of accounts code called “Printing and Stationery” will have related expenses like the lease for your printer and packs of A4 paper.

The groups in your chart of accounts translate onto your profit and loss report, which enables you to review your expenses and revenue, as well as compare records across accounting periods.

Connecting your accounting system with your accounts

Xero and other systems like MYOB connect to your bank accounts and can automatically download your bank statements. If you’d like to learn how to set this up in Xero, click here.

Once the financial information is flowing into your system, it’s time to decide which features are useful to you. Your accounting system can

Create and send invoices to your customers
Record and store the bills you need to pay
Compile, prepare and file your GST returns
Prepare reports to highlight how you’re performing
Create budgets

Using your financial system well relies on you establishing excellent financial processes and internal controls. Let’s start by seeing what internal controls look like in practice.

Standard internal controls

Internal controls describe practical things you do to make sure your business’s money is safe. Actions like using passwords for your internet banking and making sure no cash is ever left in a till overnight.

Some standard internal controls:

Dual signatories – when multiple people have access to a bank account, this policy ensures any transaction is approved by two people
Cash security – taking a cash drawer out of the till at night reduces the chances of theft, in conjunction with regularly banking your cash
Reconciliations – it’s important to regularly check that the money you’re receiving (both in physical cash and digitally) matches the amount recorded in your sales system
Checking bills – as simple as it is, checking that a bill is accurate before paying it is critical. Scammers have had success with sending in fake bills to businesses!

To create excellent internal controls, it’s important to figure out the biggest financial risks to your business and create systems that safeguard them.

Manual things you’ll still need to do

Implementing controls is a manual, human process, and it isn’t the only one. Additional policies like stocktakes and checking received items against packing slips will always be important.

No matter how much you automate, it will remain important for a human to check over your financial systems. That’s why we strongly recommend a monthly check of your financial reports.

Financial reports to run

We recommend generating a bank reconciliation report each month. It checks that all your transactions have been coded and that your account balance actually matches what’s showing in your accounting system
You should run a profit and loss report each month and compare it against your budget or figures from your previous month. Anomalies worth investigating will stick out
If you’re using Xero for invoicing, run an aged receivables report. It will identify if you have overdue debtors (it’s a good idea to pay particular attention to the invoices in the 60 and 90-day columns)
Finally, if you’re GST registered, run the GST return. You’ll see how much GST you need to pay each period, plus all of your transactions for the GST period – so you can check you’ve coded everything correctly*

* If Beany prepares your GST returns, we’ll be looking at this in detail (so you don’t need to).

Who are Beany?

We’re an online accounting firm that is always right here for you, your accounting pain relief. The most advanced technology lets us work way more closely with you than a normal accountant world.

We have a dedicated team of certified accountants and a support team to take care of your business no matter where you are, so you can focus on growing your business. We take out the ‘fluff’, break down the barriers and get things done. Looking out for you is what we are all about. Get started for free today.