Sole Trader - Book keeping - Excel

[NickleIckle]

Hello!

I have a question about book keeping for small businesses. I have read the sticky posts and links.

My husband has a small cleaning company - he is a Sole Trader, not VAT registered, and has no employees. I know it is not ideal, but our business & personal finances (bank accounts etc) are all together. We usually divide up the relevant expenses by percentage as to private or business.

He has been in business for almost ten years, and employed an accountant at the beginning. However, he found the accountant to be expensive, and he also filed inaccurate tax returns which resulted in us having to pay a lot of extra tax as a result. Anyhow, this being the case, for the past six years or so, we have done all of our own accounts and filed all of our own returns.

Each year, I am striving after the ultimate simple solution for book keeping! I have tried SAGE accounts, and while this is very good, it is far too complicated and time consuming for our small business. This year I have just used a number of simple Excel documents - one listing all income, one listing all expenses. However, I am still finding it complicated at the end of the year when filing my returns to pull out all the right information for the right box in the tax form (I use ROS). I want to be able to easily get a total for each category listed on the f11 form. I also want to be able to get a total for each category, and then the amount of business/private to add back in without spending hours at it.

Now - finally getting around to my question - does anyone else use Excel for their bookkeeping? And if so, would anyone have/be willing to share a template that works well for them? I was planning to sit down and do something myself for 2008s books, but then I figured it would be worth asking if anyone else has come up with a good solution that they would be willing to share first? I am sure a lot of small businesses would appreciate something like this.

I hope that I have explained myself well enough!

Thanks

NickleIckle

 

[ButtermilkJa]

To be honet, keeping the information in a spreadshet is simple as long as you're familiar with how it is to be recorded at the end of the year. That's the key. If you know that A + B - C needs to be recorded in box Y on form 11 then obviously you need to keep seperate records for A, B & C.

The point I'm trying to make is, if you're not sure how to extract the info efficiently to fill in form 11 then you're not going to be able to efficiently record the info throughout the year.

My answer would be to familiarise yourself fully with the tax system (if it is your intention to keep doing the returns yourself) and then you would be in a much better position to work out a simple way of recording the info in a spreadsheet.

I'm sure after 6 years of book keeping you are not a novice so I'm sorry if this sounds a bit condesending (it's not meant to be at all) but if you know what you need to record then you will know how to record it.

 

[NickleIckle]

Thanks for the reply!

I do have a fairly decent understanding of how it all works, and I am able to fill in the tax forms reasonably well. I also have a decent enough working knowledge of Excel.

I think when I originally set up the spreadsheet at the beginning of 2006(after using Sage for a while) I did it backwards - recorded the info and then tried to fit it into the tax return the end of the year. And as it is time to have done the 2006 returns, and well into the 2007 tax year - I want to fix it before 2008 begins!!!

I think the thing to do is to work at it forwards rather that backwards like you suggested - see what info I need, and then find a simple way of recording it (although I seem to end up making things more complicated for myself more often than not!).. Its just that I recently started working full time myself, so I want this to take up as little time as possible.
I can set up something myself, and I will if needs be, but I just thought it would be worth asking if anyone else has something like this already set up to save time for me & others!

Thanks again!!
N

 

[ubiquitous]

I think when I originally set up the spreadsheet at the beginning of 2006(after using Sage for a while) I did it backwards - recorded the info and then tried to fit it into the tax return the end of the year.

Sorry, but isn't that the whole point of the Form 11 tax return? You prepare your accounts, work out your profit for tax purposes and complete the Form 11 accounts pages by fitting in the applicable items as extracted from your accounts.

 

[NickleIckle]

Lol i guess that is the whole point!
But, for example, I have our expenses listed in loads of different categories as "motor, electricity, phone etc etc", but on the f11, it lumps a load of them together. So to make things simpler in filling it out, it would be easier to record my expenses in the same category 'lumps' that the f11 uses. So in a way, I want to work backwards, or is it forwards?!
N

 

[ubiquitous]

What's the problem with adding together 2 or 3 expense figures when completing Form 11? I think you are making the whole exercise a bit more complicated than necessary.

Another issue is that ROS Accounts Pages formats sometimes change from year to year and they release the annual Form 11 until after the year end.

 

[ButtermilkJa]

...
I think the thing to do is to work at it forwards rather that backwards like you suggested - see what info I need, and then find a simple way of recording it...

Yes, exactly. I reckon it would make it easier if you can remember exactly what calculations you do with your figures at the end of the year and then try to find an easy way to record them in Excel so that it does this for you. Apart from anything else it would give you accurate figures to reference all throughout the year if needed! I understand ubiquitous's point, but it would help you in this case to work backwards using last years accounts as reference.

...
I just thought it would be worth asking if anyone else has something like this already set up to save time for me & others!...

Yes definitely you're right. If someone had a system and was willing to share it, it would be very helpful to you and indeed others. However, I always get great satisfaction from completing tasks like this myself .

 

[jeepers5]

Hi Ya,

I use a both excel & tas books 1 to do my annunal accounts, I have used SAGE, but , like yourself have had little luck wit it, but find TAS1 much better.
I'm based in Galway, and could run a few things by you if you wanted to,

Let me know if i can be of any use to you!