The beginning of a new financial year is a good opportunity to review your Xero file and make sure everything is up to date. A few simple habits can help keep your accounts organised, improve the accuracy of your financial reports and reduce the time required when preparing your BAS and tax return.

Keep Your Bank Accounts Reconciled

Try to reconcile your bank transactions regularly rather than leaving everything until the end of the quarter or financial year. Regular reconciliation makes it easier to identify missing, duplicated or incorrectly recorded transactions before they become larger issues.

Check that:

• Transactions are matched to the correct invoice or bill
• Personal expenses are not recorded as business expenses
• Transfers between bank accounts are correctly identified
• Unusual or duplicated transactions are investigate

Use Bank Rules for Regular Transactions

If the same types of transactions appear regularly, bank rules can help reduce manual data entry.

For example, you may be able to create rules for bank fees, rent, software subscriptions or regular payments to the same supplier.

Xero can then suggest how these transactions should be recorded when they appear in the bank feed. You should still review the details before confirming each transaction.

Review Outstanding Invoices

Check your outstanding customer invoices and follow up any overdue amounts.

It is also worth reviewing older invoices to determine whether they have already been paid, need to be corrected or may need to be written off.

For customers who are invoiced the same amount regularly, repeating invoices can save time by automatically creating invoices based on a set schedule.

You can also use Xero’s invoice reminder feature to automatically remind customers when an invoice is approaching its due date or has become overdue.

Make Receipt Management Easier with Hubdoc

per receipts can be easily lost, damaged or forgotten. Hubdoc can help by keeping your bills, invoices and receipts stored digitally and connected to Xero.

You can send documents to Hubdoc by:

• Taking a photo using the Hubdoc mobile app
• Forwarding an invoice or receipt by email
• Uploading a document from your computer
• Scanning and uploading paper documents

Hubdoc extracts key information such as the supplier, date and amount. The transaction can then be published to Xero with a copy of the original document attached, ready to be reviewed and reconciled.

Instead of collecting receipts in a drawer or searching through emails at tax time, your supporting documents can be stored alongside the relevant accounting transactions.

Where Hubdoc is not being used, receipts, invoices and other documents can still be attached directly to transactions in Xero. Keeping the supporting document with the transaction makes it easier to locate information later. It can also help us respond more efficiently if we have questions while preparing your accounts.

Check Your Payroll Information

Before processing your next pay run, review employee information, pay rates, leave balances and superannuation details.

You should also confirm that employees who have left the business have been processed correctly and that any recent changes to employee details have been updated.

Small improvements to the way you use Xero, such as reconciling regularly, using automation features and uploading receipts through Hubdoc, can save time, reduce paperwork and help keep your financial records accurate throughout the year. If you need assistance setting up Hubdoc or reviewing your Xero file, please contact the MKG Partners team.