Small business bookkeeping 101

If you are an aspiring accountant, the concepts that we will cover in this section will be familiar to you. However, if you are brand new to bookkeeping, make sure you grab a notepad to take notes, and a cup of coffee to stay alert.

One of the benefits of using QuickBooks to manage your books is that you don’t need an accounting degree to learn how to use the software. However, you should have a basic understanding of how bookkeeping works and what’s happening behind the scenes in QuickBooks when you record transactions.

The main areas of your business include the following:

• Money coming into your business (sales)
• Money going out of your business (expenses)
• Inventory and fixed asset purchases
• Tracking the money you owe (liabilities)
• Using the chart of accounts to properly track everything
• Accounting methods: cash versus accrual
• Double-entry bookkeeping

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