Free Small Business Bookkeeping Templates | Smartsheet (2024)

FAQs

Does Excel have a bookkeeping template? ›

If you open up Excel and then use the relevant keyword in the “Search All Templates” box, you should be able to find a basic template that will fit your needs. For example, Excel has an inbuilt profit and loss statement template, business expenses budget template, budget planner template, and more.

The formulas in Excel are much more powerful than those in QuickBooks, which means you can also use Excel to perform complex calculations. It is difficult or impossible with QuickBooks because it lacks the ability to perform advanced functions such as statistical analysis and pivot tables.

Open your Excel worksheet and select one column for income and another for expenses. Record all your income and expenses in their respective column. Select the last cell in your income column, type "Total income," and press 'Enter.

Provided you don't need any of the advanced small business accounting stuff that usually comes with QuickBooks like accounts payable, payroll and inventory management, FreshBooks is a solid accounting option for the average freelancer.

While bookkeeping is all about recording of financial transactions, accounting deals with the interpretation, analysis, classification, reporting and summarization of the financial data of a business.

QuickBooks Online

$30/month. Basic accounting tools on a single-user license. $55/month. All Simple Start features for up to three users, plus bill management and the ability to add employee time to invoices.

FreshBooks is one of the easiest accounting software to use. The software is designed for small business owners who don't have an accounting background. You can create and send invoices, track expenses, manage projects and clients and view reports.

How does a small business keep a spreadsheet of expenses? ›

The golden rules of accounting also revolve around debits and credits. Take a look at the three main rules of accounting: Debit the receiver and credit the giver. Debit what comes in and credit what goes out. Debit expenses and losses, credit income and gains.

While most expense categories are fairly standard and straightforward, the mistake many business owners make when doing their own bookkeeping is creating duplicate categories or failing to enter expenses into the appropriate category.

Depending on the research, data shows that between 750 million and a billion people use Excel or other spreadsheet tools globally. This makes it one of the most-used financial tools in the world.

Lack of Historical Data - Excel wasn't designed to store years worth of financial information. If you use it for bookkeeping, you won't have the financial data you need to identify financial trends. Without these trends, it can be difficult to forecast, budget, and make informed business decisions.

Both Quickbooks and Microsoft Dynamics 365 are powerful applications that have their own specific merits and purpose. Quickbooks is well suited for Small and Medium-sized businesses, whereas Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a better option for large companies that have multiple business operations.

How do you create a budget and expense spreadsheet? ›

It is not illegal to make books, but it is illegal to receive bets on agreed upon odds. A bookmaker, sometimes called a “bookie” or “turf accountant,” takes bets from individuals and then pays out or collects money based upon what his book says about who-owes-who what amount of money.

Yes, you do need a bookkeeper even if you have Quickbooks. We understand that you're a small business owner, and you want to save money where you can. But relying on software alone may cost you more in the long run. Accountants and bookkeepers can offer so much more than Quickbooks.

Types of Bookkeeping system

The single-entry and double-entry bookkeeping systems are the two methods commonly used. While each has its own advantage and disadvantage, the business has to choose the one which is most suitable for their business.

Average prices for bookkeeping services: Fast facts

To help answer some of your burning questions, take a look at a few average rates: The average hourly wage for a bookkeeper in the U.S. is $22 per hour. CPAs typically charge $200 – $250 per hour. Top bookkeepers in major cities may charge $500 per hour (or more).

Bookkeeping is a direct record of all purchases and sales your business conducts, while accounting is a subjective look at what that data means for your business. An accountant can be considered a bookkeeper, but a bookkeeper can't be an accountant without proper certification.

QuickBooks Cost

Simple Start: This plan is designed for small businesses with just one user. It costs $30 per month.

QuickBooks Online is cheaper and comes with more features than QuickBooks Pro, the desktop version. QuickBooks Online offers several plan options. A version for self-employed individuals is available, called QuickBooks Self-Employed.

What program do most bookkeepers use? ›

Best Overall QuickBooks Online

Intuit's QuickBooks Online has been one of the most common accounting software programs used by small businesses and their bookkeeping and tax professionals. The software is cloud-based and can be accessed through a web browser or a mobile app.

QuickBooks Simple Start is the easiest and quickest way for single users (freelancers, gig workers, solo entrepreneurs) to manage all of their income and expenses in one simple tool.

A self-employment ledger, or “tax ledger”, is a fancy expression to describe where you keep track of all your business income and expenses – just your standard bookkeeping! You can document in an online spreadsheet, accounting software, or handwritten “ledger” book.

If you want to track business expenses in Excel, you'll need to create a spreadsheet and fill in the appropriate information. The most important columns are likely to be “date,” “description,” “category,” and “amount.” You can also add additional columns if needed, like “vehicle number” for tracking car expenses.

Financial statements are prepared reports that represent the financial operations of a company. They can be used internally by managers to make strategic decisions; they can be used externally by stakeholders to make investment decisions.

The chart of accounts organizes your finances into five major account types, called accounts: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses.

What is the #1 rule in accounting? ›

Rule 1: Debit all expenses and losses, credit all incomes and gains. This golden accounting rule is applicable to nominal accounts. It considers a company's capital as a liability and thus has a credit balance. As a result, the capital will increase when gains and income get credited.

Bookkeeping is something that you either have to learn or outsource when you're running a business. Luckily, it's possible to learn how to manage your own books and there are a few notable benefits to tackling it yourself.

Outsourcing Your Bookkeeping. Not Chasing Late Payments. Failing to Keep Relevant Receipts. Carelessness When Bookkeeping.

Open the workbook that you want to use as a template. , and then click Save As. In the File name box, type the name that you want to use for the template. In the Save as type box, click Excel Template, or click Excel Macro-Enabled Template if the workbook contains macros that you want to make available in the template.

Excel can be a great bookkeeping tool for small business owners. Using accounting templates, you can keep track of your net income, expenses, invoices, transactions, and other data. You can choose to create your own templates or download them from the internet.

On the Home tab, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Number. Tip: You can also press Ctrl+1 to open the Format Cells dialog box. In the Format Cells dialog box, in the Category list, click Currency or Accounting.

Create a booklet using a template

Go to File > New. Type booklet in the search box and select the search icon. When you find the template you want to use, select it and choose Create. Click File > Save a copy to save your booklet.

What is the hardest thing to do in Excel? ›

One of the greatest challenges when it comes to using Excel is data load. For larger entities with large data sets, Excel may not be sufficient. It is very easy to crash your Excel when there's too much data, formulas, and the like.

QuickBooks lets you send invoices, while Excel doesn't offer any integrated banking options. You have unlimited resources while working on an Excel sheet.

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholder's Equity

This equation sets the foundation of double-entry accounting, also known as double-entry bookkeeping, and highlights the structure of the balance sheet.

Master specific Excel functions for accounting and finance. Easily look up data using VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, and XLOOKUP. Analyze and present your data efficiently with PivotTables and charts. Create your own tax and debt calculators, and so much more!

The default Accounting number format in Excel is uppercase. This is usually the case with functions, so if you change your number format in Excel, your functions may also need to be changed.

Transactions are entered in the books of accounts by applying the following golden rules of accounting: Real account: Debit what comes in and credit what goes out. Personal account: Debit the receiver and credit the giver. Nominal account: Debit all expenses & losses and credit all incomes & gains.

Step 1: Create a chart of accounts for posting your financial transactions. Step 2: Enter all transactions using debits and credits. Step 3: Ensure each entry has two components, a debit entry and a credit entry. Step 4: Check that financial statements are in balance and reflect the accounting equation.

The main rule for the double-entry system entry is 'debit the receiver and credit the giver'. The debit entry for a transaction will be on the left side of the general journal, while the credit entry will be on the right side of the journal.