5 easy ways you can save money on accounting fees

If you would love to say goodbye to high accounting fees the great news is that saving money in this area is often quite easy for many business owners. The number one rule is to drop off clean tidy records. The cleaner the job coming in the cheaper the job is going out.Not only will this reduce the time and cost associated with completing your annual financial accounts, but this will allow us time to add value to your business. We often can add a lot of value by helping you with simple strategies. It’s a win win for everyone involved...So here we go with our hot tips to save you money on accounting fees:1.      Have a maximum of two business bank accountsMost businesses only need two bank accounts. One bank account is a trading account with a cheque book and the other is a savings account for putting money away for taxation and other costs.2.      Use a computer program like BankLInk, MYOB or XeroWhen using a manual system we have to manually write an income or expense code against every transaction through the year. Not only that but many of these expenses are re-occurring day by day, week by week, month by month. Yawn! Then we use the computer to enter each of these transactions into our accounting program. 3.      Avoid at all costs giving us a mess to clean upI know some people look at their year-end financial records and think to themselves ‘Wow I’m so glad I don’t have to sort this out as it would take me hours’. Well it does take hours – these hours are much better spent working with you to work on your business. To be honest we won’t continue to work with someone like this year on year – as we can’t see any value in what we are giving you - we are simply not interested.Some simple strategies like making sure your GST and wages reconcile as you go throughout the year  and using our ‘Year End Folders’ allows you to keep records tidy during the year. The folders come with dividers that are easy to follow. Keeping your GST and PAYE correct and having records up to date is easiest when you set aside 30 minutes a week to do it. And the good news is  the folders are free to our clients and only a small cost if you are not a client.4.      Keep all relevant recordsYes, it is important to keep your receipts - but it is equally important for you to keep these too:-          All of your bank statements in date order-          Loan statements-          Hire purchase statements-          RWT certificates-          Credit card statements- New Loan documents-          Any other bits of important information5.      Keep work and play separateApart from delivering clean records this is one of the easiest way to reduce your costs. Use your business bank account for receiving income, paying business expenses, and paying a regular amount of drawings to your personal bank account to use.  Use your personal bank account for all your personal expenses. This way we can focus on simply working on your business expenses not your food bills.Sounds simple? Well it is. We are here to guide and support you and most of all to add value to your business and lifestyle.If you need help please give us a call. We are always happy to spend an hour with you now if we can save you 10 hours later.Our goal here at Legacy is to partner with you and support you. We would much rather be adding value to your business than passing huge accounting fees that you see no value in.