Monthly Bookkeeping Checklist for a Small Business

Bookkeeping is far easier as a monthly habit than a once-a-year scramble. This checklist takes most very small businesses under an hour a month.

The month-end checklist

1. Download your bank and card statements for every business account.
2. Log every transaction: date, description, category, amount.
3. Categorize consistently. Pick a category list once (sales, cost of goods, software, advertising, supplies, fees and so on) and stick to it.
4. Reconcile. Your ledger's ending balance should match the statement. If it doesn't, find the missing or duplicated entry now.
5. Match receipts to larger expenses and file them by month.
6. Separate personal spending. If any slipped through the business account, mark it as an owner draw, not an expense.
7. Review the profit-and-loss. Revenue minus expenses for the month, compared with last month.
8. Set aside tax money based on the month's profit.

What to look for in the P&L

Look for categories that jumped, subscriptions you forgot, and whether margin is moving up or down. The value of a monthly P&L is spotting a problem in week 5, not month 12.

Keep a separate business account

If you do only one thing, do this. Mixing personal and business money is the main reason small-business books become hard to keep.

Bookkeeping & P&L Kit: do this math automatically in Excel or Google Sheets.

See the Bookkeeping & P&L Kit