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Regular and thorough accounting practices keep your business ready for taxes and audits while also allowing you to make informed decisions about factors like pricing and inventory. — Getty Images/kate_sept2004

When tax season rolls around, neglected accounting tasks can haunt small business owners. It’s a pain to categorize income and expense transactions from memory or track discrepancies among hundreds of entries.

A daily accounting checklist can streamline routine activities and improve year-round cash flow. Here are the day-to-day accounting duties that should be on your bookkeeping checklist.

Why do small businesses need to stay on top of accounting regularly?

Accounting tasks involve recording and tracking financial data. When completed regularly, these activities help small businesses categorize expenses to streamline tax deductions and stick to a budget.

Here’s why daily accounting tasks are crucial for small businesses:

  • Regular bookkeeping routines increase tax compliance. Late or inaccurate filings can result in IRS penalties. Recording revenue and tracking expenses helps companies submit error-free forms and estimated tax payments.
  • Daily accounting practices enhance cash flow management. Over half of respondents told PYMNTS that they faced challenges managing cash flow. With a habit of checking cash flow daily, you can boost awareness and pivot quickly if there’s an issue.
  • Well-maintained accounting systems support data-driven decisions. Accounting reports and dashboards can inform business decisions about scheduling, pricing, marketing, and inventory.
  • Daily accounting tasks keep financial records audit-ready. Whether seeking funding, reporting to stakeholders, or awaiting an IRS audit, maintaining professional bookkeeping standards helps you avoid legal or credibility problems.

Daily accounting checklist for small business owners

With the proper accounting system setup, you can spread out bookkeeping tasks to avoid a backlog of work. Since every company has different needs, this small business accounting checklist provides activities in four key areas. Customize your template to build a daily bookkeeping routine.

Update and review financial data

Daily monitoring and cash flow tracking are simple ways to keep tabs on your small business's health. With accounting software for financial reports, you can complete these bookkeeping tasks in minutes using automated workflows and alerts, real-time dashboards, and software integrations.

Add these activities to your daily accounting checklist:

  • Update data or confirm integrations are syncing correctly. Export sales and payment data or enable automatic updates by syncing your bank feeds, point-of-sale (POS), e-commerce, and payment apps with accounting software.
  • Check cash flow and A/R reports. Schedule reports to arrive in your inbox so you can review cash flow summary and accounts receivable aging reports daily. Alternatively, glance at your accounting dashboard for current balances.
  • Monitor cash flow. Understand your cash on hand by inspecting discrepancies between actual and estimated balances and addressing alerts for unusual expenses or anomalies.

Small business accounting tools can automate many daily, weekly, and monthly activities, saving time without sacrificing financial insights or visibility.

Reconcile transactions and receipts

Financial experts often highlight the importance of daily reconciliations in small business accounting to ensure accurate records, detect errors early, and simplify monthly and quarterly tax filings.

Focus on day-to-day accounting activities, such as:

  • Match transactions to receipts. Start with ones that could affect cash flow. Compare the receipt to the journal entry, verifying the amount, date, and vendor or customer name.
  • Cross-check bank deposits and sales reports. Confirm that the POS system sales match bank deposits and that sales reports align with payment processor deposits.
  • Scan and save receipts. Maintain an audit trail and comply with recordkeeping requirements by digitally attaching invoices or receipts to recent transactions.
  • Spot-check recent transactions. Review major inflows and outflows and flag any unknown or duplicate entries for further inspection.

Manage daily expenses

Employee expenses affect cash flow, financial reports, and tax deductions. Proper tracking prevents overspending and enables accurate tax preparation.

Include these tasks on your small business accounting checklist:

  • Log employee expenses. Use expense management tools to automate receipt uploads.
  • Track petty cash. Log and reconcile funds daily using a spreadsheet or cash tracker app.
  • Manage expense requests. Approve or deny expenses using business automation tools.
  • Reconcile credit transactions. Match receipts to card data to prevent overcharges.

Handle inventory accounting entries

Restaurants and grocers selling perishable items and retailers and e-commerce stores with high-volume sales may manage inventory-related accounting tasks daily. Service-based businesses or companies with low stock turnover may prefer to handle these activities weekly or monthly.

Your inventory checklist for accounting might include:

  • Update inventory and accounts payable if your company receives new stock daily.
  • Record sales and stock adjustments to write off expired or sold items nightly.
  • Sync sales, inventory, and accounting to record or update the cost of goods sold (COGS).
  • Reconcile physical inventory with sales or purchase records for fast-moving stock.

Can you handle accounting in-house, or do you need an accountant?

Small business accounting tools can automate many daily, weekly, and monthly activities, saving time without sacrificing financial insights or visibility. Still, if you’re handling the routine tasks of an accountant by yourself or notice your team falling behind in bookkeeping duties, your company may benefit from outsourcing accounting.

Finance professionals offer part- and full-time support for companies needing occasional, tax-related, or ongoing assistance. When choosing accounting services, consider your current challenges, which daily bookkeeping duties you plan to keep doing, and which financial tasks you want to outsource.

CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.

CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here.

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