Chapter 9
Recording Receipts and Sales
In This Chapter
Recording sales and customer payments — different strokes for different folks
Doing the books for other kinds of income
Staying wise to who owes what
Triumphing over tricky situations
Everyone loves to receive money. I know I do. And so the part of bookkeeping where you get to catalogue sales and match up customer payments is kind of fun.
As a bookkeeper, keeping tabs on how much customers owe is life-and-death stuff. If a business doesn’t chase customers for overdue accounts or extends too much credit without realising, the consequences can get pretty dire. As a bookkeeper, your job is to make sure the books are accurate and up to date, and to keep on the back of recalcitrant payers.
In this chapter, I explain how to keep a simple cash receipts register, and I also explain how to record customer invoices, match payments against invoices, and record other kinds of income, such as bank interest or capital contributions. I also show no fear and delve into the lonely corridors of customer credits and discounts, refunds and rebates, and last but not least, the sad act of writing off bad debts.
Tailoring for the Perfect Fit
A bookkeeper can keep track of income in many different ways. What works best depends on the size of the business that you’re doing books for, your budget and what you’re most familiar with. Here are just a few possible approaches:
If you prefer to do books by hand, the simplest method is to write up a receipts ...
