Monthly And Quarterly Bookkeeping Vs. End Of Year Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is an integral part of financial management that keeps track of your finances. When your books are in order, it’s easy to draw reports and make crucial decisions. However, when it comes to bookkeeping, we are often asked how regularly bookkeeping should be performed. There are two options you have when it comes to bookkeeping frequency. You can either do it on a monthly or quarterly basis or at the end of the year.

Both options are acceptable and offer benefits. But, at the same time, they also have their cons. To help you determine which option is the best one for you and your business, ALL-PRO Business & Bookkeeping Corp. has compared monthly and quarterly bookkeeping vs. end-of-year bookkeeping.

1. Monthly and quarterly bookkeeping

When you update your books every month or quarter, they will have the most recent data about your finances readily available whenever you need it. When you perform bookkeeping regularly, you’re also more likely to look back on previous data and easily fix mistakes or make adjustments as necessary. By looking into your bookkeeping monthly or quarterly, you also reduce your costs as your bookkeeper has less work. When they ring you or come by for information about your expenses and income every month, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with these professionals. This will make it easier to ask them for advice and additional services at affordable rates.

Some challenges you may face with monthly or frequent bookkeeping are missing information due to time constraints and the inability to locate data as a lot of time will have gone by since the entries were made for a particular month. But if your bookkeeper has an electronic system in place and is skilled at their job, they should be able to overcome these challenges with ease.

2. End of year bookkeeping

By performing your bookkeeping tasks at year-end, you ensure that all the data is put together at once. This means your reports can be prepared for the year in one go. While this is great to a certain extent, it can be tricky. If you are disorganized and lose information, your books could be missing data, and they will not truly reflect your finances. Another challenge you may face with bookkeeping at the end of the year is high costs. As the amount of work your bookkeeper needs to do will take more than a single day, they will charge you more for their services. There may also be a lot of time wastage while trying to straighten out your receipts and other financial proofs.

Which option should you choose?

At ALL-PRO Business & Bookkeeping Corp., we believe that all clients should do their bookkeeping on a monthly or quarterly basis to keep their books up-to-date. Plus, the client would be less likely to miss any Government deadlines throughout the year.

If you are not sure about this, consider how often you want to see your financials. If it is an important factor to you and your business, having your books updated every month is necessary. When you are aware of your monthly expenses and income, you can make smart decisions for the next month or quarter. You can adjust your spending according to the current trend or requirements and see if it meets your purpose. Whether it does or doesn’t can be determined through the following months’ records.

If you’d like to learn more about bookkeeping essentials, reach out to ALL-PRO Business & Bookkeeping Corp.. We are a bookkeeping business serving clients across Airdrie, Cochrane, Bearspaw, Bragg Creek, Calgary, Chestermere, Strathmore, De Winton, Okotoks, Black Diamond, and High River, AB. We have over twenty-five years of experience and have catered to the bookkeeping needs of several small to medium-sized businesses in various fields. We usually customize our services to suit your needs so we can prepare your books as per your convenience, that is, weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Irrespective of how often you choose to avail of our services, our goal to ensure your needs are met remains the same!

For more details about our services, please click here. If you have any questions about what we do, get in touch with us by clicking here.