Do you have to do your own bookkeeping?

Are you an entrepreneur? There's a good chance that you'll have to manage your company's accounts.

The question is whether you want to take care of your finances yourself or call in a professional.

If you want to take care of it yourself, there are a number of things to consider.

What does it involve?

There's no secret: managing your accounts requires real skills

Indeed, simply drawing up a balance sheet is far from easy. That's why it's often advisable to enlist the help of a chartered accountant to help you manage your accounts.

Here are a few steps to follow:

• To be able to manage your accounting, you'll need a perfectly parameterized accounting application.
• Then you can start recording all your accounting transactions. This work must be carried out throughout the financial year.
• The next step is to draw up a balance sheet. This is done at the end of the financial year, and is based onthe recording of all inventory operations: expenses, invoices, depreciation allowances, etc.
• Once the balance sheet has been drawn up, the annual financial statements can be published.

The benefits

There are several advantages to this type of management:

• First of all, such an operation saves the fees of a chartered accountant. This is not insignificant, given the cost of this type of service. Such savings are all the more attractive for young structures that don't necessarily have large sums to spend. On the other hand, it will still be necessary for the entrepreneur to pay a subscription fee to use an accounting application, or even to undergo mandatory training.
• What's more, managing your own accounts gives you the opportunity to keep your accounts up to date on a regular basis. Entrusted to a chartered accountant, a company's accounts will only be updated when the information is received. At best, a monthly update is possible. In contrast, if you manage your own accounts, you'll be able to keep them up to date on a regular basis. This real time monitoring facilitates management of third-party accounts and cash flow.

Regularly updated accounting systems, especially automated ones, can be very useful for managing a business.

Worth considering!

The limits

Despite the advantages listed above, there are a number of disadvantages to doing your own bookkeeping:

• One of the most time-consuming aspects of in-house bookkeeping is the time it takes to manage the company's accounts. The amount of time required will obviously depend on the size of the company, the volume of operations to be processed and, last but not least, its processing speed.
• The second disadvantage is that no professional validates and checks the accounts before they are declared to the tax authorities. It is therefore possible for the entrepreneur to make errors that could have serious consequences for the company in the event of a tax audit. In case of doubt, don't hesitate to call in a chartered accountant to check the accounts produced up to that point.
• Finally, managing accounting also means managing the company's tax affairs. With no chartered accountant on hand, it's up to the entrepreneur to take care of VAT declarations, tax returns, corporate income tax payments and the Cotisation Foncière des Entreprises... The advantages of the micro-enterprise system are clear, with a much lighter tax regime.

Such operations require time to devote to them

If this is not the case, don't hesitate to call in a chartered accountant. This will avoid any unpleasant surprises!