Business Bank Account / Bookkeeping

[Burgo]

Keeping your personal from business using the same bank account, simple enough really a seperate column in your cash book for you.

[Julia Nitschke]

I saw you have mentioned you would like to use a cash book template from the ATO.

I have used it ( e-record from the ATO) for a client (it was their choice) and it is very easy to use and since it is free is a great start for your business.

Now they have grown larger I am getting them onto MYOB, but that is only because they have grown and it is more appropriate.

I just wanted to give some feedback on the software you wanted to use, hope it helps.

Originally Posted by bexonline

Hopefully not to much of a stupid question....

I'm in the middle of setting up a new business and have been told I should keep all my personal and business expenses separate.

Does this mean I need a new business bank account?
If it does can anyone recommend one with no or little bank fees?

This will be a fairly small business. Am I right in thinking that if I summarise all the income and expenses in this new bank account that this is all my accountant will need to complete my tax return? I don't have money at the moment for software and would prefer using a cashbook template from the ATO website.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

[diggerd]

Sorry this is a little off-topic, but Paul, you mentioned you use openERP. I have been looking at this software myself, but had seen some feedback that it may not be well suited to Australian conditions or that it needed a fair bit of adjusting to work here. How do you find it here in OZ? My first impressions of it was it looked quite good and had a lot of the features I was looking for?

Thanks for any feedback.

DiggerD

Originally Posted by paul

Sure.

We use openerp - http://openerp.org. This is a full erp system, and I selected it because it will give us the most flexibility for the future. What I particularly like is the timesheet aspects, I can record my time spent on customer work directly in openerp and generate invoices from the hours. It is also a client/server solution (if you want), which was important for us.

A more straightforward options is gnucash - http://gnucash.org, one of the more popular options.

This google link will lead you to more: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=op...rce+accounting

If you are looking at low transaction counts, you could look at sassu as an online solution:

http://www.saasu.com/pricing/

I haven't used this so do your research.

Cheers,

Paul

[2905#deleted]

HI there, I expect by now you have probably sorted out an account but thought I'd tell you about my experience. I am like you, I've just started a business and have very little in the way of transactions (hoping that will change as the business develops). I didn't want to pay bank fees but it seemed everywhere I went there were lots of fees and hidden charges too. Even Bankwest say they have no monthly account fee but charge you $5 a month to access online banking. I ended up going with Bendigo Bank. They have no account fee for their basic business cheque account but you pay for each transaction but not to receive payments, which is mainly what I needed. I was also able to link a Visa debit card so I could make purchases online. I found them very pleasant and the account was open in 10 minutes with minimal paperwork. With the other bank that I mentioned you needed a degree to fill out the paperwork and they wanted to charge me for an extract of my business registration. Hope this info helps. Good luck.
Wendy

[FletcherTax]

I agree with Burgo.

I would set up an Excel spreadsheet customised specifically to my needs. And record keeping of private expenses may also be useful for your own budgeting purposes.

I know some of my clients import their bank statement into Excel every month and then move/place the amount against its specific expense category in the same spreadsheet.

Once you've outgrown the spreadsheet, you can always move up to software.

[BeYourOwnBookkeeper]

Hi


As a Contract Bookkeeper and small business owner, I would really recommend setting up a separate bank account for your business. Whether you do the bookkeeping yourself or use a bookkeeper it makes everything so much simpler if you put all your business transactions through one account.

If necessary you can have a credit card as well as a bank account, but like the bank account just use the credit card for business purchases.

If you are thinking of doing your own bookkeeping for your business it is still useful to get in contact with a bookkeeper, so that you can have a backup for difficult questions. Especially during the start up phase, the bookkeeper can help you choose an accounting software package and get it set up properly and then assist with some training.

After that you are set to go it on your own, but with the backup of the Bookkeeper if you need it.

I have followed this process with many of my clients and after a few months they are managing really well on their own.


Kind Regards
Robyn Howard
author of Be Your Own Bookkeeper

[JennyP]

Hello!
Can you recommend bookkeeping services in Melbourne, Victoria for sole trader/micro business?



Regards,
Jenny

Originally Posted by befree Bookkeeping

Hi,

If you are looking for bookkeeping Services in NSW, visit here for more information,

http://www.befree.com.au

[Couple It]

Originally Posted by JennyP

Hello!
Can you recommend bookkeeping services in Melbourne, Victoria for sole trader/micro business?



Regards,
Jenny

Jenny, you would do better to post this as a new thread in the "Need a Referral?" forum. Or look through the directory - there are plenty of book-keepers listed there.

Wendy

[paul]

Originally Posted by diggerd

Sorry this is a little off-topic, but Paul, you mentioned you use openERP. I have been looking at this software myself, but had seen some feedback that it may not be well suited to Australian conditions or that it needed a fair bit of adjusting to work here. How do you find it here in OZ? My first impressions of it was it looked quite good and had a lot of the features I was looking for?

Hello DiggerD, sorry for the late reply to this post, I missed the notify email.

I like openerp, it can offer a lot if you know what you are doing. I am not an accountant though, and don't have a lot of transactions. Things like importing transactions are very tricky. The killer feature for me is timesheet billing - our company offers services by the hour, and openerp provides a very simple method of recording time against projects, and then a one-click to generate an itemised invoice for the work.

It understands GST (which is a fairly simple tax), however I report my GST based on payments received rather than invoices - as a small business getting paid sometimes takes a bit of time, and openerp doesn't seem to support this method of reporting GST. Which means none of the inbuilt BAS preparation type reports are helpful, so I do it by hand. Given that openerp cannot talk to my bank account and automatically settle invoices paid, I find it simpler to just use my bank statements as a way of working out what income I have had and so what my GST income is. Settling invoices in the system itself becomes a "when I have time" type activity.

It can import CSV statements and then auto-settle invoices, but it is a tricky affair.

Having said all of that, it *does* support AU specific accounting. There are modules you can install to Australia-ise charts etc.