Taking the next step

You've purchased new accounting software, you may even have integrated estimating software and may be sending your bids from the estimating package to the accounting package. Wonderful, you have done well. Now you are ready for the next step. Some of the setup procedures that sometimes take a back seat to be done later may need to be reviewed. Now is a good time to choose one more task to get you closer to your goals:

• General Ledger Budgets - set up projections for income and expense accounts to keep the numbers in check and make it easy to review on a monthly basis.
• Statement of Cash Flow - is it set up, do you know how to read it?
• Fine tune your Chart of Accounts - get rid of accounts that were ".. in your software" and are not used by your company, summarize some accounts so that your income statement is clean, or your balance sheet includes totals of all vehicle loans allowing you to refer to supporting schedules for a detailed list.
• Do you have a remote data backup procedure in place? Put the responsibility in a reliable companies hands to be sure you have a good backup on a daily basis. The benefit far outweighs the cost.
• Is your equipment in good shape and up to par? RAM is very inexpensive these days, good network cards are worth their weight in gold and also inexpensive.
• Is it time to review jobs that need to be closed? Set up procedures for reviewing closed jobs and mark them closed in your software.
• Are you current in your monthly closings? Are procedures written down? Does everyone know their duties as it relates to this important task?
• If you are using QuickBooks, are your items clean and directed to the proper GL accounts.
• Have you scanned your logo and are you using it on your reports? Do your reports look like you want them to look?