Your company has started to grow – fast! This is a result of hard work over long hours and long weeks. New staff have been hired to manage the work from the new opportunities.
You find you may need more space, and you definitely need that new device to be able to keep up with the workload. You set up meetings with your landlord and bank manager to get things moving for expansion. They ask you to make sure to provide them with current, complete financial reports, to which you reply … oh, sure.
Now begins the great scramble. In all the turmoil of handling the new business and new staff, the bookkeeping has been totally neglected. Expenses haven’t been recorded, reconciliations are months overdue, and the chances of getting financials together by Monday is zero. Those meetings to move your business along will come to nothing, progress will slow, money will be lost, and there is the risk of the new customers finding another company to do the work you probably won’t be able to manage.
Keep the books up to date as a matter of priority, so you don’t end up in these circumstances with your business. One of the staff you should have hired was a comptroller or accountant to make sure that not only the yearly compliance issues are dealt with, but the day to day work is complete and your books stand ready for scrutiny at any time – you never know!
