Save Bookkeeping Fees With Spreadsheets

Can you really save on bookkeeping fees using spreadsheets? The short answer is: That depends!

Advantages of using spreadsheets for your bookkeeping:

• The beauty about using spreadsheets is that you can create little formulas in the cells to give you the answers that you are needing.
• Yes, you can save money on bookkeeping fees by not having to buy any accounting software program, or you could use some free accounting software package
• Yes, you can save money on bookkeeping fees by not having to get any training in using any fancy accounting software program
• Yes, you can save money on bookkeeping fees by doing the bookkeeping yourself on spreadsheets, as using a simple spreadsheet can be a quick easy and economic solution to doing your bookkeeping for a small business owner.

Our mobile Melbourne Bookkeepers often help small business owners in and around Melbourne’ northern suburbs by tidying up the bookkeeping that’s been done on a spreadsheet.

Disadvantages of using spreadsheets for your bookkeeping:
There can be a few problems using a spreadsheet when it comes to bookkeeping.

• Unless you’ve set your spreadsheets up correctly, there may not be any checks in place to identify where errors may be occurring.

  This can be an advantage when using accounting software packages such as Quickbooks or MYOB where the reporting process has already been set up. At the punch of a button you can run a number of reports that will quickly highlight where any errors may be in your data entry.

• Many small business owners do not know or understand the full potential of using spreadsheets to do their bookkeeping.
• You may think that little can go wrong when using spreadsheets to do your bookkeeping.

And that’s exactly what happened to the Columbia Housing Authority in the USA a few years ago.

When a Government audit was undertaken, the Columbia Housing Authority eneded up having to pay $216,352 to cover expenses incurred when the authority gave some tenants too much room and some landlords too much rent. They admitted to $118,387, the amount that resulted from a spreadsheet data-entry error that overpaid landlords.

The Nevada city budget spreadsheet apparently worked correctly until sometime in late December 2005 when it developed a problem, causing the 2006 budget to show a $5 million deficit in the water and sewer fund.

There’s so many examples of what can go wrong with using spreadsheets to do the bookkeeping for your Melbourne business, and in so many instances the errors are not discovered until it’s too late and the damage has been done

Contact us today for a bookkeeping health check-up