When it comes to profound words of wisdom, ‘ensure you keep all your paperwork’, probably isn’t going to make it to any Top 10 Literary List, but all the same, that shouldn’t detract from its’ importance to small businesses.
Not ensuring you keep all the paperwork is a common accounting mistake that many small businesses make, as outlined in Garry’s recent radio interview.
Getting and keeping receipts and proper paperwork for all business transactions is key. It’s an absolute must if you are VAT registered, and still essential if you’re not.
It’s incredible how often we see business owner managers lose significant sums of money on legitimate businesses expenses they can’t prove!
Consider every spend in your business and ask ‘can this be legitimately claimed as a business expense?’ then ensure you get a suitable receipt to prove it.
Simple things like buying coffee for a business meeting, small items of stationery, travel and subsistence, the list goes on. It’s important you only claim for things that are wholly, necessarily and properly business expenses… so if you can claim, why wouldn’t you? If you’re VAT registered you get tax relief on them and the VAT back as well! Just think, if you don’t claim, you’re paying these sums out of your own taxed income!
So good record keeping is critical … down to every last little bit of paper.
If you’re not well organised there are some good phone apps around that can help you by scanning items, or you can give all your receipts to an assistant or your accounts person, as quickly as you can before you lose them!
Whatever you do don’t miss the opportunity!”
On a lighter note… When visiting a remote village in the Gambia my husband and I were introduced to a tribal elder to pay our respects and receive words of wisdom – after surveying us for some time she held out a container and beckoned us forward. The words of wisdom we received were… ‘put money in bucket’… a clear and simple sales message!… I didn’t ask for a receipt!
