Recommend book on book keeping?

democrates

Can anyone recommend a book on book keeping for small business which is easy to follow?

I'm using the spreadsheets from startingabusinessinireland.com and they are straight forward. But I want to combine and extend them into a more suitable form to yield management accounts, vat returns, and my annual income tax return more easily. Sadly there is no acompanying documentation.

TabulaRasa22

democrates wrote:

Can anyone recommend a book on book keeping for small business which is easy to follow?

I'm using the spreadsheets from startingabusinessinireland.com and they are straight forward. But I want to combine and extend them into a more suitable form to yield management accounts, vat returns, and my annual income tax return more easily. Sadly there is no acompanying documentation.

You're better off just to figure out the process yourself, what you need to keep track of etc, and make the spreadsheets up by hand. Every business has a different set of requirements for accounting, its practically impossible to find a stock set of sheets that fit all bills (no pun intended).

democrates

TabulaRasa22 wrote:

You're better off just to figure out the process yourself, what you need to keep track of etc, and make the spreadsheets up by hand. Every business has a different set of requirements for accounting, its practically impossible to find a stock set of sheets that fit all bills (no pun intended).

Yes, I've already started that process to make it easier to compile the vat3 returns. In the longer term I'll set up a database for the job, that will make management reporting much easier as well as producing returns for the revenue comm's.

ronbyrne2005

go to your local library and get a bookkeeping book,they are all pretty standard or download one from the P2P networks.

democrates

ronbyrne2005 wrote:

go to your local library and get a bookkeeping book,they are all pretty standard or download one from the P2P networks.

I've started into 'managing the numbers' as it has good coverage of the basics as well as management accounts, but it doesn't go into the nitty gritty in some areas as much as I'd like so I'll also get a more general one as you advise, cheers.

yoshick

democrates wrote:

Can anyone recommend a book on book keeping for small business which is easy to follow?

I'm using the spreadsheets from startingabusinessinireland.com and they are straight forward. But I want to combine and extend them into a more suitable form to yield management accounts, vat returns, and my annual income tax return more easily. Sadly there is no acompanying documentation.

Hi,

Have you thought about the Virtual Accountant at hookhead.com. It's an Online Action-Oriented Accounting System which does pretty much all you want. It's aimed at one-man-bank limited companies who don't know much about accounting. In short it handles Sales Invoices, Purchases Invoices, Expenses, and Salaries. You keep track of things on a high level and it maintains the Trial Balance in the background. Not only that, but it prepares reports to help you fill in your tax forms i.e. P30, P35, VAT3 and VAT RTD.

For more information on this, either contact info@hookhead.com or check the online help for the Virtual Accountant (www.hookhead.com/VirtualAccountant.jsp). The documentation is still under development, but the application is complete.

Subscriptions start at €300 per year, without using the Hook Head accountant behind the scenes.

Regards,
Mark
Hook Head Software

democrates

hookhead wrote:

Hi,

Have you thought about the Virtual Accountant at hookhead.com. It's an Online Action-Oriented Accounting System which does pretty much all you want. It's aimed at one-man-bank limited companies who don't know much about accounting. In short it handles Sales Invoices, Purchases Invoices, Expenses, and Salaries. You keep track of things on a high level and it maintains the Trial Balance in the background. Not only that, but it prepares reports to help you fill in your tax forms i.e. P30, P35, VAT3 and VAT RTD.

For more information on this, either contact info@hookhead.com or check the online help for the Virtual Accountant (www.hookhead.com/VirtualAccountant.jsp). The documentation is still under development, but the application is complete.

Subscriptions start at €300 per year, without using the Hook Head accountant behind the scenes.

Regards,
Mark
Hook Head Software

That looks excellent Mark, I'll have a serious look at it when the business becomes a micro-enterprise, it's a pico-enterprise at the moment.

yoshick

Feel free to contact us (www.hookhead.com/contact_us.jsp) when you decide to take a look. I'll can set you up with a trial account and you can see if you like it before committing to subscribe.

Regards,
Mark

thetourist

i dont know anything much about accounting and am in a similar boat to you - i bought "bookkeeping - manual and computerised" by john roche - i havent really read it yet but just flicking through it it looks good - and it's irish, which is why i bought it.

gill and macmillan
isbn 0-7171-3538-1