It's time to move away from Excel-based tracking. If you haven't made the switch already, it's time to ditch the old ways and embrace the new.
MANAGING OUT OF POCKET CASH EXPENSES IN QUICKBOOKS PRO MANUAL
Manual bookkeeping processes are time and labor-intensive-and who’s to say the bookkeeper's calculations are accurate or up-to-date. Even the most complex Excel spreadsheets, templates, and models are manual in nature and become inadequate for keeping track of your operational expenses, especially as your business scales. These days, far too many businesses rely on antiquated accounting methods that set them up for failure. Tracking business expenses and controlling company costs can be a long, drawn-out, and unreliable process-but it doesn’t have to be. On top of that, it paints a clear picture, allowing you to prioritize expenses and accurately measure progress.
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It helps your entire company become more disciplined and organized. What’s the one key takeaway? Tracking your expenses isn’t just good business, it’s essential. Ideally, your tracking system should be able to log receipts on your behalf so you can easily see which of your payables and receivables are tax-deductible when it’s time to fill out your tax returns. The IRS requires that you keep the receipt for any business expense that is greater than $75. If you want to obey the law and avoid audits (as well as make sure you get all the proper tax deductions), it’s crucial that you’re prepared for tax season. If you were under, look for places to allocate more money.
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If you went over, see where you can make cuts. At the end of each month, you can review business expenses and compare your spend to projected spend. Business expense tracking is one of the most important ways you ensure that your spending habits are in alignment with your established plan. Once you’ve built a budget, the hard part is actually adhering to it. This works on both a macro level (looking at the business as a whole) as well as a micro level (empowering team managers to keep tabs on their team's operating budget, performance, and spend habits to reduce maverick spend). To get a clear picture of your finances, it’s important that you are catching little costs that add up and deciding whether larger expenses are justifiable. Daily and monthly expense tracking allows you to find trends or outlying costs. If you’re unaware of where your money is going each month, you will not be able to modify bad financial behavior that negatively impacts your company’s profitability. You need a comprehensive view that fully accounts for the entirety of your spend so you can see what you’re doing right or wrong and adjust based on business needs. When it comes time to look at monthly P&L statements, it’s important that you’re keeping track of both the big items like freelancer and contractor expenses or marketing ad budget at the same time as small line items like one-off client lunches.
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Much like history, losing your grip on the past relinquishes control of your company’s future trajectory.Īccurate and constant business expense tracking keeps your business finances in line in several different ways, including: Gain an accurate view of company performance Companies that don’t track and control business income and expenses are unable to adequately account for their financial past.