It’s a stressful time.

And the last thing you probably want to think about are your accounts.

We get it—and we completely understand.

But as we both know, when things are stressful and busy is exactly the time when we let our accounts slip and before we know it, things are backed up and totally unmanageable.

So, to help you out, we thought it would be useful to share three very simple things you can do to make sure you stay on top of your accounts.

Plus, there is always one thing you can do that could potentially take away your accounting stress forever…

We’ll get to that shortly.

First, here’s a simple way to stay in control…

Little but Often

It’s something one of our directors, Rob Smith, always advises, and with good reason.

Because one of the most difficult and stressful things about accounting is having to do it all at once.

When you’ve got a big backlog of invoices and receipts and who knows what other records you tend to amass during the financial year…trying to deal with them in one fell swoop is tough.

So, our advice is to tackle your accounting in a piecemeal way.

Spend only a short while dealing with things…

But do so often.

Even if you just spend ten minutes a day, you’ll find that you’re soon in a much better position and don’t have quite as much weight on your shoulders.

Scan in whatever receipts you’ve collected at the end of the day…round up your invoices each week…do a quick bank reconciliation at the end of each month..

All these things only take a short while if you do them often. But if you leave them for the end of the year, they become much harder to deal with.

Use Separate Accounts

This is another of those things you keep meaning to do all the time but never quite get around to doing.

But we recommend you don’t put it off a moment longer.

Keeping a separate bank account for business use is one of the simplest and most effective ways at speeding up and minimising complications when it comes to sorting your accounts.

It’s such a small thing but can make a huge difference.

By having a separate account for all business matters, you immediately get rid of the need to question what receipts need saving and which ones can be disregarded.

And, you immediately make reconciling your account infinitely easier by getting rid of the need to go through every transaction you’ve made to figure out if it’s something that should go through the business or not.

If you haven’t already, take the time to get a new bank account set up for your business today. You won’t regret it.

Be Your Own Taxman

Naturally, one of the biggest worries when it comes to dealing with your own accounts and figuring out how much you owe in tax and contributions, is whether you’re allocating enough.

One way to overcome this problem is to slightly over allocate each month and, crucially, separate the tax you estimate is due into a different account each month.

In other words, be your own tax man.

Don’t just leave the money in your regular accounts. Physically—or rather, digitally—move it into another account each month so that you are holding it separate to the rest of the money in your business.

It means, when the time comes for you to pay the taxman, you’ll have adequate funds available and quite possibly some left over, which you can use to issue your own kind of tax rebate.

Of course, working out how much you should be putting aside each month might be the very problem you’re facing…

Or there might be something else that’s making your accounting more difficult than it needs to be.

If that is the case, here’s the simple way you can almost avoid doing your accounts at all…

Let Us Take Care of Things

It’s as simple as that.

If you’re always stressed out about sorting your accounts, give us a shout and we’ll help take the weight off your shoulders for good.

It’s our job to make accounting easier for our clients and we have a whole team here who are dedicated to making your life simpler.

Of course, everyone’s circumstances are different…

And that’s why the first thing we always recommend is for you to get in touch with us to discuss your particular circumstances.

We’ll figure out where your pain points are and offer advice on how we can help you eliminate them altogether.

You’re under no obligation to hire us by giving us a call, so if you do find accounting a nightmare…

Just give us a shout.

As ever, you can contact us through the website here or call us directly on 01472 287387.