Book-Keeping for Sole Trader

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mcb

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I am doing book keeping for Sole Trader who is registered for VAT. I would appreciate some reassurance that I am doing what I should be doing...this is what I am keeping records of:

Keeping receipts for expenses, that is petrol, client expenses in relation to food/drink. Have put these on a monthly spreadsheet.

Doing monthly bank rec's

Will be starting this month (as only registered for VAT from Jan), doing VAT analysis for VAT returns.

Obviously keeping files on creditors/debtors.

The Sole Traders account will be doing end of year accounts. Just want to make sure that I am doing all that I should be doing.
 
mcb said:
I am doing book keeping for Sole Trader who is registered for VAT. I would appreciate some reassurance that I am doing what I should be doing...this is what I am keeping records of:

Keeping receipts for expenses, that is petrol, client expenses in relation to food/drink. Have put these on a monthly spreadsheet.

Doing monthly bank rec's

Will be starting this month (as only registered for VAT from Jan), doing VAT analysis for VAT returns.

Obviously keeping files on creditors/debtors.

The Sole Traders account will be doing end of year accounts. Just want to make sure that I am doing all that I should be doing.
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are you posting bank cheques/debits and receipts on accounts package and which one or are you doing them on spreadsheet?

has soletrdaer many transactions each month?

will they be any employess?

depending on business stock and work in progress

pettycash analysis
 
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mcb said:
The Sole Traders account will be doing end of year accounts. Just want to make sure that I am doing all that I should be doing.
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I assume you mean the sole traders accountant will be doing year end accounts. Perhaps it would be a good idea to liaise with him or her to ensure that what you are doing is (a) adequate under legislation and (b) in a format which makes it easy to fit in with their end of year work ( which would help reduce any possibility of duplication and cost to the client )
 
Why not download the free Basic Tas from the sage website? More streamlined than doing spreadsheets, and easy to use. ( No connection with company)
Be aware you cannot deduct for input vat on petrol or food and drink expenses.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Papervalue, Yes I am posting cheques/direct debits/lodgements etc manually in analysis book. No computer package yet. There are no employees as of yet

Graham, sorry yes I meant that the Sole Traders accountant will be doing the end of year accounts. Thanks, I think I will double check with the accountant that I have sufficient records etc.

Gervan, thanks I will check out sage.
 
Mybooks is available free from www.mytax.ie. Its a cracking good spreadsheet & does all you will need for a small business. I have no connection, but I find it far better than some spreadsheet software that I have bought over the years.
 
Gervan said:
Be aware you cannot deduct for input vat on petrol or food and drink expenses.
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im aware of someone who uses their laser card on the business account to withdraw cash to pay for the above. They then record that on Sage using Nominal code 5000 (purchases) as being a bank payment with 10% vat incorp

Can you advise if this is an incorrect proceedure?
 
You cannot reclaim VAT unless you have a valid VAT receipt

Withdrawing cash and then attempting to claim that it was for purchases without backup and THEN attempt to reclaim VAT is about as incorrect as you can get!

Also, there is no 10% VAT rate in Ireland AFAIK, unless it's one of those obscure ones which relates to livestock or something.
 
Hi Mcb,

The Tas Basics as mentioned by someone else is great as it is free and it will do all of the basics - customer balances, supplier balances, bank rec, payments and reciepts, vat report, profit and loss, balance sheet and trial balance. You can download it here
http://www.tassoftware.ie/tassoftwa..._software/tasbooks-quickpay-free-download.asp

I know some people are happy to use excel for basic accounts but personally I would always prefer to use some type accounts software as it means that once your data is entered you can run reports right away and also its easy to spot a mistake.
On an accounts package you can also create nominal accounts for the different types of expenses you are recording so its easy and quick to see what was spent on each.
 
Hi all. Just new to the site today. I'm a self-employed person who runs a part-time business from home, don't employ any staff and have been using Quickbooks 2006 for the last year quite happily. Went to log in the other day to catch up on some things and it says my activation ceases in a few weeks from now. I'm quite happy just using the software as it is, I never need to contact quickbooks for support and I certainly don't have the money to afford to upgrade with them. Has anyone else had this problem, and do you think this Tas free software would be a better option for me?

Thank you.
 
When you say your activation runs out does it mean you will not be able to use it anymore unless you pay a fee or does it just mean that your support contact with them is up and you can keep using without support? Maybe give them a shout and see which it means?

If you know an accounts package well you will probably be fine day to day without support provided you are taking regular backups and sure you can always purchase it if you get stuck or there is an error later on?

Re the Tas its free anyway so probably no harm downloading it and taking a look. The disadvantage would probably be that your data from Quickbooks probably would not come over but if you did change you could always keep it on the PC as backup. It probably depends on what you want to do too the free one might not do all you need
 
Sorry for the delay in replying, but thank you so much for your post. I've had this problem before with Quickbooks. It will get to 2nd March and I won't be able to access my information without paying them more money and I don't understand their justification for this. I don't want their support, I've never had their support and I'm happy carrying on as I am with the software that I PAID FOR? I will probably take your advice and download Tas and just carry my figures to this programme and keep a backup of Quickbooks. I'm just miffed really that this company is asking me to pay money for something I don't want.
 
It will get to 2nd March and I won't be able to access my information without paying them more money and I don't understand their justification for this. I don't want their support, I've never had their support and I'm happy carrying on as I am with the software that I PAID FOR?
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You probably PAID FOR a licence to use the product for a set period of time. Did you read the terms of your licence agreement?
This is a common licensing model.

Do you expect to get all the updates for free as well?
 
Hi there

I'm in the process of setting up my own business (ltd company) and have found the comments re the financial software very useful. I was wondering if anyone has a good reference site that tells you what is deemed an expense for the business.
 
Any expense which is "wholly and necessarily for the purposes of the trade" is deemed to be a valid business expense.

There is no exhaustive list which can tell you what is a business expense and what is not as every business is different.
 
ValueVera said:
Hi there

I'm in the process of setting up my own business (ltd company) and have found the comments re the financial software very useful. I was wondering if anyone has a good reference site that tells you what is deemed an expense for the business.
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The Revenue's website gives an indicative idea of allowable expenses, but it is clearly not exhaustive.

[broken link removed]

The test to use is that stated by DB74 as you will also see stated in the above link.
 
Thanks for your very helpful and assumptive comments! No, I'm not expecting something for nothing. I've never updated anything the whole time I've been using the software. I'm beginning to think that the software isn't suitable for me since I am just a one-man band, generating small volumes of work. I didn't realise when I purchased that this was for a set period of time. I do, however, understand this when I buy my ant-virus software because it clearly tells me that it's a periodic "subscription" for sale.
 
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