How to organise your business finances

Being organised is a key skill for anyone trying to run their own business. This is particularly true when it comes to your business finances. There are many different financial documents, tax forms, and forecasts you need easy access to, so knowing exactly how to organise your business finances is vital. 

This article will provide a few tips and tricks you can use to organise your business finances better. The topics we’ll cover include:

• Learn what’s important and what’s not
• Separate your personal accounts
• Have a filing system
• Schedule time for your finances
• Ask for help if you need it
• How to organise your finances with Countingup

One of the best ways to organise your business finances is to simply reorganise your workload. When you start to prioritise tasks and examine your accounting more closely, you might find that there are jobs you’re doing inefficiently or jobs you don’t need to be doing at all.

By finding out what the most important jobs are, you’ll find out what the most important documentation is. This means that you can find a spot for these documents where you can access them more easily, whether that’s a physical folder or a specific place in your Google Drive or Dropbox.  

By eliminating the unnecessary jobs, you’ll also be able to organise your business finances better, as you’ll have fewer files to work with. 

A business bank account is a great way to make organising your company finances easier. If you don’t separate your business and personal finances, you might have to spend a lot of time just identifying which transactions are from company purchases and which are personal.

Another advantage of a business bank account is that some have built-in features that simplify organising your finances. For instance, the business current account offered by Countingup has a feature that automatically categorises your expenses. This means that if you need to create a document listing your expenses, you can simply copy the information from Countingup, instead of categorising them manually.

Keep in mind that if you choose to register your business as a limited company instead of a sole trader, having a separate bank account for professional use is a legal requirement. Even if you are a sole trader, though, having a business bank account is hugely useful.  

A filing system might sound outdated in the digital era, but it’s still a great thing to have. No matter where you store your documents, it’s better to know exactly where they are than to have to spend ages searching for them.

There are tons of different filing systems, so do your research and pick the one that makes the most sense for you. Just make sure to keep separate sections for your income and your expenses, and to keep copies of all the significant documents associated with them. For instance, make sure that you have copies of:

• Contracts
• Receipts
• Bank statements
• Invoices
• Tax forms

If the original versions of these documents are paper, it’s smart to digitise them while keeping the paper copies. While you’ll probably use the digital copy more often, having a physical spare is a good idea. 

Unfortunately, organising your business finances isn’t something you only need to do once. It’s something you’ll need to work at constantly, as your company will create new financial data almost every day.

To stay ahead of this constant flow of information, you need to set aside a specific time to organise your business finances. Most businesses work on a monthly cycle, so re-examining and tidying all of your finances at the end of each month is a good start. If you still find that your finances are disorganised, consider setting aside time each week to get everything in order.

If you’d like to set time aside to do your finances, but find that you have no spare time available, you might want to look into improving your time management. You may need to reschedule or delay doing other tasks to spend time organising your business finances, as they are a priority. 

It might be that your finances are too far gone, and any organisational tactics you try don’t have much of an effect. In this case, you might need to seek out the help of someone with more financial training than yourself, like an accountant.

If you’re trying to find an accountant for your business, make sure you approach a variety of accountants and find the right person. It’s also wise to confirm all of their qualifications before you hire them. 

An accountant is perfect for organising your finances, as they’ll know exactly what needs doing and can advise you on preventing disorganised finances in the future. Hiring an accountant to manage your finances will also save you a lot of time, which you can then spend doing other jobs.

Financial management software is almost essential if you’re looking to organise your finances. Having all your financial data in one place, accessing that data from anywhere, and using software tools to help with accounting make financial management an incredible asset for your business. 

Countingup is the business current account with built-in accounting software that allows you to manage all your financial data in one place. With features like automatic expense categorisation, invoicing on the go, receipt capture tools, tax estimates, and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances wherever you are. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 

Find out more here.