Any accountants or bookkeepers in the house?

[Connie12]

I'm helping a friend get a new business off the ground. I'm good at paperwork, organization, and details...he's the "talent" of the business. The business is stress relief and relaxation training, and selling semi-precious stone handmade jewelry.

I need some help getting the accounting ledger(s?) set up. I haven't taken accounting since high school! I want to make sure I get it right from the start so I don't have to backtrack and correct mistakes. I'm thinking I need the following columns:
Date of sale
item sold
total for item(s)
Fl sales tax
total

In this general ledger, I should also include insurance payments and office supplies as well as any "capital" he deposits? Is there any thing else? It's a sole prop with no employess so there's no payroll to worry about. I'm just planning on creating an Excel worksheet and filling it in. He can't afford anything like Quicken right now...and I'm not sure helpful it would really be anyway since it's a very small and simple business.

I'd appreciate any help and guidance from this educated crowd. He's making his first sale today and I want to get started on the right foot.

Thanks in advance!

 

[cakebaker]

I've done bookkeeping & payroll, but will not try to give you advice here. I would recommend that you get a basic bookkeeping book - I'm sure they are available cheap out there somewhere. Either that or get a tutorial online - you can learn everything online, & I'm sure bookkeeping is no exception.

 

[Tess_ATL]

I'm a CPA and while you are on the right track, I think it needs to go a bit further. Yes he needs to keep track of his sales. The way you describe sounds fine. He'll also want to keep track of his inventory and the cost of goods he is making / selling in order to track profits. You'll also need a few more "balance sheet" ledgers, a detailed cash ledger to track deposits and withdrawals, a receivables ledger to keep track of money owed to him, and a payables ledger to keep track of money he owes out. A capital schedule might not be a bad idea either to track how much of his own cash he's invested into the business. At tax time, a CPA / bookkeeper will be able to use these schedules to prepare a tax return. Quickbooks should be one of the first programs he buys once he has a little cash flow, it will definitely pay off in the long run.

 

[jdawnc]

If I were you I would create a separate worksheet for sales and expenses. You could also create links to other worksheets for the sales taxes.

It seems pretty daunting at the begining but however you keep track of the books, be organized and keep a paper trail of everything!

 

[eriniski]

I think it would be good to set up a spreadsheet even in excel. But I checked on barnes and nobles and they have a huge selection on books that would maybe be more resourceful and I am sure they prob even have cheaper software to help out. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Bookkeeping-Made-Simple/David-A-Flannery/e/9780767917063/?itm=3

My work had used timeslips for billing before not sure how expensive that was.

 

[jdbmga]

I agree with Tess, buy Quickbooks. It's much easier/better than doing the books manually.

 

[Connie12]

Thank you all so much for your advice!! I went to the library yesterday afternoon and got 2 bookkeeping how-to books. It looks very do-able for me. I'd love to buy QuickBooks, but it'll have to wait for the increased cash flow.

Thanks again!