Five Great Tips for Keeping Your Bookkeeping Accurate

Sign All Your Own Checks in a small business, people — especially full-charge bookkeepers — can bamboo/.le you too darn easily. By signing all the checks yourself, you keep your fingers on the pulse of your cash outflow. This practice can be a hassle — and you can't easily spend three months in Hawaii — you have to wade through paperwork every time you sign a stack of checks. Finally, if you're in a partnership, you should have at least a couple of the partners co-sign checks.

Don't Sign a Check the Wrong Way If you sign many checks, you may be tempted to use a John Hancock-like signature. Although scrawling your name illegibly makes great sense when you're autographing baseballs, don't do it when you're signing checks. A clear signature, especially one with a sense of personal style, is distinctive. A wavy line with a cross and a couple of dots is really easy to forge.

Review Cancelled Checks Before Your Bookkeeper Does Be sure that you review your cancelled checks before anybody else sees the monthly bank statement. A business owner can determine whether someone is forging signatures on checks only by being the first to open the bank statement and by reviewing each of the cancelled check signatures. If you don't examine the checks, unscrupulous employees — especially bookkeepers who can update the bank account records — can forge your signature with impunity. And they won't get caught if they never overdraw the account. Another point: If you don't follow these procedures, you will probably eat the losses, not the bank.

Choose a Bookkeeper Who Is Familiar with Computers and Knows How to Do Payroll Don't worry. You don't need to request an FBI background check. Just find people who know how to keep a checkbook and work with a computer. A bookkeeper who knows double-entry bookkeeping is super-helpful. But, to be fair, such knowledge probably isn't essential. I will say this, however: When you hire someone, find someone who knows how to do payroll - not just the federal payroll tax stuff but also the state payroll tax monkey business.

Choose an Appropriate Accounting System Cash-basis accounting is fine when a business's cash inflow mirrors its sales and its cash outflow mirrors its expenses. This situation isn't the case, however, in many businesses. A contractor of single-family homes, for example, may have cash coming in (by borrowing from banks) but may not make any money. A pawnshop owner who loans money at 22 percent may make scads of money even if cash pours out of the business daily. As a general rule, when you're buying and selling inventory, accrual-basis accounting works better than cash-basis accounting.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the expression of accounting as ‘the language of business’?

2. How can the government control tax discipline?

3. What is the essence of accounting?

4. What main operations does the basic accounting cycle include?

5. Why do accounting problems exist in international business? What problems do you know?

6. Name three groups of countries with similar accounting standards?

7. Give the definition of auditing and auditing standards?

8. What organizations are involved in harmonizing accounting standards?

9.  Does Ukraine use national or international accounting and auditing standards?

10. What in your opinion is more important accounting or auditing? Give your reasons.

tripartite – having three parts of groups to mint – make coins overdraft – a situation in which you draw more money from a bank account than you have in it merger – joining of two commercial companies