Bookkeeping For Dummies, UK Edition

Manage the books and your sanity with Britain’s leading guide! Complete and accurate bookkeeping is vital for any business. This guide shows you how to keep the books without becoming overwhelmed by the numbers. Fully updated for the newest accounting practices and software, it walks you through bookkeeping basics, day-to-day operations, year-end reporting, payroll preparation and everything you need to tackle the job with confidence. Account for everything – understand basic accounting methods, work with ledgers, explore the Chart of Accounts and choose your business type From day to day – handle everyday activities such as entering invoices, collecting on cash sales, making and tracking purchases and banking Wrap it up – prepare for month-end or year-end by adjusting books, depreciating your assets and handling VAT correctly Present results – produce a profit and loss statement, develop a balance sheet and prepare year-end accounts Pay your staff – learn to operate an RTI payroll system, collect employee taxes, prepare and post payroll and settle up with HM Revenue & Customs Move to the cloud – explore the benefits and possible risks of moving your bookkeeping functions to the cloud Open the book and find: Bookkeeping lingo translations Opportunities to test your knowledge Tips on managing your workload Practical ways to reconcile your bank account Information about depreciation How to make business decisions using Profit and Loss statements Reporting processes for not-for-profits Your most important accounts

Introduction 1 Part I: Basic Bookkeeping: Why You Need It 5 Chapter 1: So You Want to Do the Books 7 Chapter 2: Getting Down to Bookkeeping Basics 19 Chapter 3: Outlining Your Financial Roadmap with a Chart of Accounts 39 Chapter 4: Looking at Ledgers 57 Chapter 5: Discovering Different Business Types 83 Part II: Recording Day‐to‐Day Business Operations 93 Chapter 6: Planning and Controlling Your Workload 95 Chapter 7: Counting Your Sales 107 Chapter 8: Buying and Tracking Your Purchases 135 Chapter 9: Doing Your Banking 149 Part III: Preparing the Books for Year‐ (or Month‐) End 163 Chapter 10: Adjusting Your Books 165 Chapter 11: Depreciating Your Assets 183 Chapter 12: Adding the Cost of Value Added Tax (VAT) 197 Part IV: Reporting Results and Starting Over 211 Chapter 13: Producing a Profit and Loss Statement 213 Chapter 14: Developing a Balance Sheet 231 Chapter 15: Reporting for Not‐For‐Profit Organisations 249 Chapter 16: Preparing Your Year‐End Accounts 265 Part V: Payroll Preparation and Online Accounts Tools 271 Chapter 17: Employee Payroll and Benefits 273 Chapter 18: Cloud Accounting: The Modern Approach to Bookkeeping 293 Part VI: The Part of Tens 305 Chapter 19: Top Ten Ways to Manage Your Business Cash with Your Books 307 Chapter 20: Top Ten Most Important Accounts for Any Bookkeeper 311 Appendix: Glossary 315 Index 321