Top tips for getting through EOFY with your sanity intact

Feeling the 31 March deadline pressure? There’s no need to if you get into gear early.

Online accounting software has now revolutionised the way bookkeepers and business owners manage the accounts and prepare for End of Financial Year (EOFY).

Products such as MYOB AccountRight and MYOB Essentials have made this all too easy.

EOFY can be stressful, particularly for those who don’t plan ahead.

Failing to plan means you could get start the new financial year out of sorts.

Be stress-free as possible by keeping your records up to date. To achieve this, implement great systems around your business finances.

Here are four simple strategies you could use:

Keep up to date, organised and paperless 

Collate, process and file receipts, paperwork including bank/credit card statements and file chronologically digitally where possible.

It is important to keep records and books clean, so nothing goes astray and it makes for a stress-free EOFY.

If you can, try to avoid using cash as the receipts that prove the spend can be easily misplaced. Opt for bank or credit card transactions where possible.

However, if you’ve been using cash to this point taking photos of dockets as proof of expenditure is a great way to have a record of everything which is easily organised.

After all, trying to find a specific docket is a lot easier with the click of a mouse than rifling through a shoebox of receipts.

If everything is organised, the end of financial year will be much less stressful and if you get into the habit now next EOFY will be a breeze.

MYOB Essentials and AccountRight also have an ‘In Tray’, which enables businesses to automatically receive, store and link electronically formatted bills.

The big bonus is that if you set it up right, you can save a huge amount of time on lengthy data entry processes.

Reconcile, reconcile, reconcile

Live bank feeds mean that reconciling accounts has never been easier.

If you have unreconciled items sitting in any account, investigate early.

Reconcile any accounts that you can – for example, all clearing accounts should be reconciled back to zero and customer and supplier deposit accounts are all able to be reconciled.

Ideally, you should be able to prove the balance of every account in your balance sheet so that all will be in order if an audit should take place.

Review creditor and debtor accounts

If you’ve been through our previous looks at creating creditor and debtor reports, you’re likely all over this.

However, it’s important to have your accounts settled before 31 March so you can start the new year with a clean slate.

Luckily, if you’re using AccountRight, Essentials, or AccountEdge it’s simple to generate a report of all outstanding debtors and creditors.

You can only start the new financial year with a clean slate if you have an idea of who you owe money to and who owes money to you.

Then, it’s then simply a matter of sending out a few gentle reminders on payment or paying suppliers to whom you owe money.

If you generate the reports now, you’re a decent chance of receiving payment before the EOFY.