Financial Statement is important for business. Why? Running the business, whatever the scales are, from small to large ones, from trading, service, to manufacturers, bookkeeping activity is always needed.
Why is bookkeeping so important? Every business owners have their goals to develop their business and able to compete with other products in the market.
The bookkeeping allows the owner to manage the business financial easily, take decision making, and establish the proper plan to expand the business. For some business owner, especially the new ones, bookkeeping process might be a complicated activity. However, understanding the basic steps to prepare will make the bookkeeping process easier. The steps to make a financial report are:
- Collect and analyze the transaction note
The bookkeeping process is started from collecting the transaction notes, such as payment receipt and other related notes. After collecting the receipts, they should be analyzed to verify the amount validity and transaction status.
- Create transaction journal
The following step is recording them in the transaction journal. Recording transaction is done when new transactions or transactions on that day are submitted. The recording process will be more efficient if every new transaction is directly recorded to avoid the error when posting them to a general ledger. There are minimum information columns in the transaction journal, such as:
- Date
- Receipt number
- Transaction account
- Note
- Debit
- Credit
- Balance
- Transfer transaction to General Ledger
After recording the transaction in the transaction journal, then transfer it to the general ledger. The journal records all the existing accounts, like a cash transaction, payable, receivable, payment etc. However in the general ledger, it will be different, the accounts are categorized based on the transactions. For instance, the receivable transaction is categorized into account receivable only. This is known as General Ledger.
- Create trial balance
The trial balance is made during the closing book period. The trial balance is made to ensure that the debit account balance is equal to the credit account balance. In general, the value of the debit transaction is the same as the credit transaction. It can be said that the final balance of the debit balance account is summed, and so is the balance of the credit, then compared. The same value means the balance transaction. If it is not balanced, there are some reasons that cause it, like:
- Missed transaction where transactions have not been recorded
- Miscalculation
- Financial statement
After collecting notes, recording to journal, posting to general ledger, creating trial balance, then making a financial statement is the final step. A financial statement is the most critical point in the business. The financial statement existence supports the owner to take a decision quickly. The financial statement consists of:
- Profit and loss report
- Financial position report
- The capital changes report
- The cash flow statement
Bookkeeping process is not complicated, right?. The most business owner has applied the accounting system to their businesses. Therefore the new entrepreneurs are encouraged to learn accounting system in order to maintain the business bookkeeping properly.
The advanced technology supports the business owner to manage their bookkeeping with a well-structured system through accounting software. The accounting software will make the financial record runs quickly, produce an accurate report, and everyone can run it, even without accounting background. It only needs two simple steps:
- Collect and analyze the transaction note
- Entry the data into software and financial report is done
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