You may hear many bookkeepers and accountants talk about the “monthly bookkeeping,” but what all does that entail? I have laid out the Quickbooks processes that I go through on a monthly basis to ensure that every transaction is accounted for and that all of the books are in order. Keep reading if you want a peek behind the scenes of what goes into your monthly bookkeeping or just want to know how you can properly do your own monthly bookkeeping.

1. Allocating Transactions

   The first thing you want to do is to make sure all of the transactions that occurred in the past month are recorded. In Quickbooks, I always go into the bank feeds and categorize each transaction. If transactions are not set up to automatically import to QBO, I will manually import them in for the month and categorize them.

2. Reconciling Accounts

   This is where the real work comes in. Once all of the monthly transactions are recorded, I reconcile each checking, savings, credit card, and loan account against the monthly statement. This is my favorite part because, at times, it can seem like a puzzle that I get to solve! Reconciliation is just a big word used to mean ‘confirming that the amount recorded in your books is the amount recorded in your bank account.’ Reconciliation is the main part of the monthly books so once this is done, you can take a big sigh of relief and just review.

3. Reviewing the books

   Even though an accounting software improves the accuracy of your books, there is still room for software and human error - that’s why I always review! I will pull a year-to-end of month balance sheet from QBO and make sure each line item is reconciled. If I have any questions or if there are any uncleared transactions, I will compose a list of questions for the client. After I make my way through the balance sheet, I will do the same for the income statement.

4. Finalizing Financials

   Once the review is complete and the questions have been answered, I will make the needed updates to the books. Then I will pull a fresh balance sheet and profit and loss from QBO. These will serve as your finalized financials for the month.

All in all, this process typically takes the first 2 weeks of the month. If you are looking for a remote bookkeeper to perform you monthly bookkeeper, click the button below and let’s chat!