Business Start-Up

1. Consult your accountant! Grants are sometimes available for training.

2. Decide on starting date, consider trial period.

3. Set up nominal ledger accounts, Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Layout.

4. VAT? Accrued or Cash Accounting.

5. Are departments required for sub analyses?

6. Use a dummy company for practice (Multi-company systems only).

7. Obtain starting trial balance.

8. Obtain starting Sales and Purchase Ledger balances.

9. Enter Trial Balance by journal entry.

10. Enter Sales/Purchase account code, names, addresses, etc.

11. Enter Sales and Purchase Ledger balances by posting directly to Sales/Purchase control account.

12. Enter live data:

a. Sales and purchase invoices

b. Cash received

c. Cash paid

d. Petty cash

13. Continue to keep manual records for at least three months and Cash Book for full year.

14. Reconcile Bank Statement with Cash Book and Computerised Bank Control Account.

15. Consider direct production of Sales Invoices. Free text or from stock. If the latter, stocks, dummy or real need to be entered into stock records.

16. Keep a backup disk for each of the five weekdays. Keep a week ending backup off the premises.

Benefits will be mainly a business that you manage - instead of a business that manages you!

TYPICAL BLOCK DIAGRAM

By entering a Sales Invoice in the Sales Ledger, the customer’s account, the Sales Ledger Control Account (agreeing the total of the individual sales ledger balances to the total debtors in the trial balance), the VAT Account, and the Sales Account in the Profit and Loss Account are all automatically updated.

Posting Purchase Invoices, Cash Received and Cash Paid all complete the double entry and update Control Accounts.