Bookkeeping Overview
Recording transactions is the easy part. What separates usable books from expensive ones is structure, timing and reconciliation.
Bookkeeping is the recording and classification of every transaction a business enters into, kept in a form that supports its tax returns, its statutory accounts and its own decisions. Under Section 128 of the Companies Act, 2013, a company must keep proper books of account on an accrual basis and preserve them for at least eight financial years. What differs between businesses is not the requirement but the delivery model — books kept in-house, outsourced entirely, or kept in-house and independently reviewed.
What bookkeeping actually involves
Beyond entering invoices into software.
- A chart of accounts designed around how you report, not the software default
- Recording across sales, purchase, bank, cash and journal books
- Monthly bank, vendor, customer and control account reconciliation
- A document trail that supports every entry if it is questioned
- GST and TDS working papers derived from the same ledger
- A period close that produces a trial balance you can rely on
The four parts of a working bookkeeping system
Each one fails differently when it is skipped.
Recording and classification
Every transaction captured against an account structure that can answer the questions you will actually ask of it later.
Reconciliation
Bank, vendor, customer and inter-company balances agreed each month, so differences are found while they are still traceable.
Document trail
Invoices, contracts and bank advices linked to entries, which is what turns a ledger into evidence during an assessment.
Period close
A defined cut-off, after which the period is locked and the trial balance is treated as final.
Our process
How books get from wherever they are to a monthly rhythm.
Assessment
Reviewing the current books, the software, and what is reconciled versus what is merely recorded.
Structure
Rebuilding the chart of accounts, cost centres and document flow before volume work starts.
Recording cycle
Regular entry and reconciliation against agreed input dates rather than a year-end rush.
Close and review
Monthly close, reconciliation sign-off and a trial balance handed to reporting and tax.
Why bookkeeping quality shows up later
What sets our approach apart.
Books serve four audiences
Management, the income tax return, the GST return and the auditor all read the same ledger, and a shortcut taken for one of them creates work for the other three.
Reconstruction costs more than maintenance
Rebuilding a year of unreconciled books almost always costs more than keeping them current would have, and it produces a weaker record.
Records have to survive eight years
Books of account and the vouchers behind them must be preserved for at least eight financial years, so the filing discipline matters as much as the entries.
Bookkeeping Overview questions answered
What people ask before engaging us.
Not sure whether your books are actually usable?
We will look at a month of your ledger and tell you what is reconciled and what only looks like it is.
