9 Bookkeeping Tasks You Must Do on a Weekly Basis

As a small business owner, daily tasks can be overwhelming, but business finances should be front and center! We’ve heard countless stories of how weekly accounting tasks take the back burner but isn’t your company’s financial health as important as customer success stories?

So how do weekly bookkeeping tasks become part of a routine? How can your small business maintain accurate records without spending hours doing so?

Whether you manage bookkeeping duties, outsource bookkeeping services, or have dedicated staff using accounting software — here are 9 essential bookkeeping tasks you must do on a weekly basis…

1. Bank Reconciliation

Reconciling your bank account is one of the most important bookkeeping tasks you must do every week. Why?

It’s common for small business owners to reconcile their accounts when the statement becomes available, but that’s a common bookkeeping mistake.

Let’s say your account closes on the 25th of each month, and your monthly bank statement isn’t sent/received until the 7th. By the time it arrives, days have passed since your earliest transactions in that cycle, and there’s been a slew of new business transactions.

A lot can happen to small businesses in a few days, let alone 24 hours. If something is incorrect, you don’t want a month to pass before you catch it — business operations can be a stake! Reconciling your bank transactions weekly ensures that no more than seven days will pass before financial statements are reviewed to ensure things line up.

2. Client Billing

How often do you send invoices to your customers? Are your Accounts receivable up-to-date?

Invoicing is as essential as turning the stove off before leaving the house. Look at it this way — creditors don’t sit and wait — why should you?!

To keep any business running smoothly, there needs to be a cadence, and you will find one, but part of bookkeeping tasks for business owners means tracking business expenses, and client billing is a huge expense!

When recording a transaction, always mark the date that the payment was received; Don’t go by the date of the postmark, the date you’re recording it, or the date it was deposited.

Only mail a statement or past-due notice to a customer once all your receipts have been posted. Otherwise, you could send a second invoice to a customer who has already paid.

3. Pay Vendor Invoices

In addition to recording money coming in, part of your accounting duties is staying on top of cash going out. All vendor invoices should be paid once per week instead of monthly.

Track spending promptly, and stick to a schedule — Pick a day of the week for writing checks, and stick to it. Cash flow is integral, and most business owners let this get lost in the shuffle.

I like paying vendor invoices once per week because the terms for each vendor vary. One bill might say “due upon receipt,” while another might be “due within 30 days.” It can be confusing trying to keep track of different due dates. If something goes in the wrong pile, it could be past due. You’ll incur late fees, or worse, your account can be frozen.

Their balance sheet is different from yours, so ensure yours is balanced…Paying the bills once per week eliminates this risk.

4. Transaction Entries

Most of your transaction entries will come from vendor payments and customer receipts. Both of which we already discussed.

However, bookkeeping tasks go beyond that… Remember to record other transactions as well. Bank accounts have automatic debits, bookkeeping software has fees, credit card statements make you want to scream, and the list goes on.

It’s important to record these accounting tasks as they happen. As previously discussed, you will be reconciling your bank statements weekly, so if transaction entries aren’t recorded, things will be confusing when you reconcile your accounts because there will be omissions.

5. Review Employee Timesheets

Many small business owners run payroll every week, bi-weekly or monthly – mind-blowing emoji here…Bookkeeping responsibilities go beyond the bank, the client and the vendor — you have to ensure your employees are taken care of too.

Weekly bookkeeping tasks should include inventory management of your employee’s timesheets so you know their expense vs. points 1-4 (and what’s to come within this post).

Understanding your upcoming payroll liabilities allows you to identify any unauthorized hours, know cash shortages that could affect payroll or how categorizing transactions can help secure funds.

6. Process Payroll

This task needs to have an asterisk, so *

As I just mentioned, small businesses will process payroll in different ways. But no matter your payroll schedule, you can still prepare beforehand.

Payroll processing is one of the most important aspects of running a business. Whether you use a bookkeeping service or have accounting software, your staff works to get paid, and you need to take this seriously.

If you start missing payroll or processing things late, you could have significant problems.

7. Scan Documents and Receipts

Accounting tasks 101 = keeping track of receipts! You must ensure that all your bookkeeping documents and receipts are safely stored. The easiest way to do this is by scanning and uploading paper records to a cloud-based storage system.

Doing this once a day isn’t necessary. But waiting and doing this once per month isn’t effective either. It’s easy to get unorganized if you’re paying an invoice at the beginning of a month but wait until the end to upload it.

For those of you who still need to upgrade to a digital document management system, review our guide on how to implement paper-free bookkeeping.

8. Make Deposits Every Week, if not Daily

Most of your money is probably coming from credit card sales and ACH transfers. But for some small business owners, cash and checks are king — This money needs to be deposited in your bank account.

Deposits should be made frequently. You don’t want to leave cash or checks lying around for too long. Use your online bank portal to deposit checks remotely.

I could see skipping a trip to the bank if you only received $100 in cash the previous day. But don’t wait more than a week to deposit these funds…

9. Track & Record Inventory

If your company sells physical goods, accounting software is an easy way to know exactly how much of each product you have on hand.

It’s impossible to make informed decisions on what needs to be ordered and what products should be discounted if you don’t know your inventory numbers. Waiting a month to figure this out is far too long.

Navitance | Specialized Financial Services Beyond an Inhouse Bookkeeper

A small business bookkeeper has lots of responsibilities. When Navitance comes into businesses, we always ask about these 9 bookkeeping tasks and generally see some being done once per month, per quarter, or even annually.

Accounting software can sometimes only take you so far, and that’s where we come in.

If you need help getting these jobs done in a timely fashion, consider using an outsourced bookkeeping service. An outsourced bookkeeper can easily handle all weekly tasks so that you can focus on smooth business operations. Contact us here at Navitance to learn more about our outsourced bookkeepers.