Shop and Till Receipts

kerplunk.

Hi,

Opening a shop, are there any specific accounting obligations that I should be aware of when compared to a non retail business, for instance as most of the sales will be anonymous would you just create a customer profile called "Anon Sale" in the accounting software or is there a particular way it should be done, also do you just enter the total sales at the end of each day or do you have to give a break down of different goods or types of goods?

Does the keeping records for 5 years also apply to used till rolls?

Is it necessary to do a total tally of sales each day or can you just wait until the till roll is at an end?

any assitance appreciated, I've checked revenue.ie and a number of other websites but I havent found the answer to these questions

exaisle

Get yourself an accountant and ask him/her. Do it before you open.
An hour of their time will save your hours of yours in the long run.

Best of luck with your enterprise!

maddogcollins

kerplunk. wrote: »

Hi,

Opening a shop, are there any specific accounting obligations that I should be aware of when compared to a non retail business, for instance as most of the sales will be anonymous would you just create a customer profile called "Anon Sale" in the accounting software or is there a particular way it should be done, also do you just enter the total sales at the end of each day or do you have to give a break down of different goods or types of goods?

Does the keeping records for 5 years also apply to used till rolls?

Is it necessary to do a total tally of sales each day or can you just wait until the till roll is at an end?

any assitance appreciated, I've checked revenue.ie and a number of other websites but I havent found the answer to these questions

Have a read of this http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/leaflets/cash-registers.html , it should help you out a bit.

Clanket

exaisle wrote: »

Get yourself an accountant and ask him/her. Do it before you open.
An hour of their time will save your hours of yours in the long run.

Best of luck with your enterprise!

This is really good advice. Spend you're time making you're business work and grow.

I don't know your situation but if you are going to need an accountant, you should get one now. You'll get answers to things like this without the hassle of having to spend hours googling and posting on boards.

A good accountant is vital to a business.

PM me if you want an idea of what it will cost.

tenchi-fan

Unless your till keeps electronic records it will be necessary to keep till rolls.

As for tallying.. I'd assume you should perform some sort of rec at the end of the day (or at least on a regular basis) to agree your till to the money you took in.

JKM

I co-manage 2 retail businesses with my brother and I am office manager for both, as well as general dogs body of course, joys of being self employed!! From my experience it is vital to record your daily takings. Like a previous poster said, you should be reconciling your tills at the end of every day anyway. Otherwise you will not be aware of potential mistakes/errors on the day that they occur, making them vertually impossible to trace.
What kind of cash register are you using? EPOS or regular? Standalone or networked? Will you have credit customers or all cash.
The biggest concern you will have when setting up is making sure all products are set up in the correct VAT amount. The last thing you need is to be paying 21% sales VAT on 0% items. Again depending on the type of retail business, you will have four categories, Standard: 21%, Service: 13.5%, Zero: 0% and Exempt: items exempt from VAT (eg. plastic bag levy).
You will definately need an accountant. I have a background in accounting and am more than qualified to do most of our bookkeeping but still require advice from our accountant frequently, especially while preparing end of year accounts etc
Also, any accountant worth their salt will set you up with spreadsheets etc to make recording your daily data easy.
Depending on what type of retail you're in maybe I could send you on the ones that I use. I have amended them over the years to particularly suit our business but they might be of help. You can PM me if you're interested.