Bookkeeping 101: Bookkeeping Basics for Small Businesses

bookkeeping for cleaning business

If you are using an Excel Spreadsheet, you will want to separate out the Cost of Goods Sold from all other business expenses. These expenses include cleaning supplies, driving expenses from each client’s home, and labor costs (whether you or an employee is cleaning). At the end of every month, do you know if you’re overspending in specific areas? If not, you may not be able to react in time to cut costs moving forward.

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bookkeeping for cleaning business

The goal of both reports is to be easy to comprehend so that all readers can grasp how well the business is doing. Without separate bank accounts, it’d be impossible to keep your business and personal expenses separate – you’d need to compare receipts with every transaction. After 3 years of being a bookkeeper for a wide variety of small businesses, Brendan switched his attention to writing about financial topics to empower the very business owners he was helping. He currently writes about a wide variety of tax, accounting, and bookkeeping topics for Bench’s blog. This means recording transactions and saving bills, invoices and receipts so you have all the data you need to run reports. Accounting software makes it easy to store these documents and reference them in case of an accounting error or audit.

bookkeeping for cleaning business

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  • However, as your business becomes more profitable and experiences growth, having a clear separation of personal versus business funds is crucial for tax purposes.
  • When following this method of bookkeeping, the amounts of debits recorded must match the amounts of credits recorded.
  • Using accounting software can streamline the process of creating and sending invoices.
  • I often hear “I clean by myself with no employees, I do not need to record my transactions“.
  • Best of all, our reports are presented in an easy-to-understand format – you don’t need a degree in accounting to know where your business stands financially.
  • However, as with any business, managing finances is crucial for long-term success.
  • Accounting software makes it possible to do much of this on your own, though you may decide to outsource some basic bookkeeping tasks to an online bookkeeping service as your small business grows.

Even with these limitations, entry-level subscriptions may be ideal for those who are just starting a cleaning business. Many business owners find that these benefits are well worth the cost of buying cleaning-business accounting software. Accounting software that breaks the bank is counterproductive, and ZipBooks makes sure that’s not the case for cleaning-business owners thanks to its affordable rates. The company’s accounting software costs $15 or $35 per month depending on the subscription level. Those looking for free accounting software may be interested in ZipBooks’ entry-level plan, which is surprisingly robust and allows users to send unlimited invoices and manage clients and vendors.

Is it worth paying a bookkeeper?

To choose the right accounting software, consider factors such as cost, features, scalability, and user-friendliness. Look for software that aligns with the specific needs of your cleaning business and can grow with your business as it expands. It’s a straightforward approach, making it ideal for small cleaning businesses with simple financial transactions. Categorizing your expenses and revenue helps you understand your business’s financial health but is not always necessary when it comes to filing your taxes. You can connect Quickbooks Online with your bank so that it securely syncs all of your business transactions within the software. As you create transactions and make money, the tool will begin to learn rules about your finances and automatically categorize your transactions, expenses, and income.

This method doesn’t record invoices or your company’s outstanding bills until they’ve been paid. Before you take on any small-business bookkeeping tasks, you must decide whether a single- or double-entry accounting system is a better fit. The entry system you choose impacts how you manage your finances and how your bookkeeping processes will work. For every new small business, it might not make sense to hire a bookkeeper straight away. But as soon as you see growth in your company, it will soon be essential to have a highly detailed, consistent bookkeeping approach.

If you are going over the allotted cleaning time you need to figure out why. Make sure you are following a consistent cleaning regime and not wasting time.

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  • Your general ledger should be up to date so that your bookkeeping software is able to provide functionality that you can navigate easily.
  • If you have mistakes to fix or transactions to track down, don’t stress.
  • As your small cleaning business grows, you’ll need a more powerful solution to help you manage many cleaning jobs at once.
  • The specific amount of an emergency fund may depend on the size, scope, and operational costs of a given business.
  • Integration becomes even more important when it comes to receiving payments.

Include a strong call to action, and use a unique promo code to measure the response rate. Optimize for local SEO to help searchers find your cleaning business online. Claim and update your Google My Business Profile with your business name, address, phone number, website, hours, and service area. Kashoo offers a surprisingly sophisticated journal entry feature, which allows you to post any necessary journal entries. Reporting options are limited to financial statements and a couple of list reports, with few customization options available, though reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel if customization is desired.

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bookkeeping for cleaning business

Next, you will want to create a cleaning log in order to keep track of your clients and the revenue coming in. Instead, pay yourself a draw and use that money to cover personal expenses. This will https://www.bookstime.com/ make your bookkeeping much cleaner and make it easier to estimate your taxes. Maintaining meticulous records of receipts and invoices is vital for the financial health of your cleaning business.

For instance, we compared the features that each company can offer across the different subscription plans, taking into account all of its various tiers. We looked at cost factors such as monthly rates and any add-on costs or discounts that might impact rates. During our research, we also paid attention to trial periods and user resources. The goal was to ensure that each program bookkeeping for cleaning business offered plenty of value and assistance to those who require additional support. Once we weighed each program’s strengths and weaknesses, we determined the best programs as well as the best use cases for each application. ZipBooks offers one of the most affordable accounting software solutions for smaller businesses on tight budgets, and it even provides a feature-rich free plan.

Customers aren’t just paying for your cleaning services, they’re also paying for the supplies your team uses on every job. While that may be packaged into their final bill, you (as the business owner) need to keep track of your inventory to make sure that you always have cleaning supplies on hand. Another thing that the FreshBooks software allows you to do is to stay on top of overdue payments. You don’t have to waste time following up with customers who haven’t paid – FreshBooks software sends automated late payment reminders for you. And if late payments are a huge problem for your cleaning business, you can automatically add late payment fees to any invoice. Through FreshBooks, you can accept credit card and ACH (US Only) payments online.