Recording all of your company’s financial data to stay on top of your bookkeeping is essential in business – from ingoings like a one-off business deal, to outgoings like the manufacturing costs for one of your products. But bookkeeping isn’t just about keeping an accurate and up-to-date record of your business finances.

Here are four reasons why it’s important to keep on top of your bookkeeping when running a business.

When running any kind of business, it’s important to stay organised, especially when it comes to your company finances. Keeping on top of your bookkeeping, so you have accurate records of everything from your weekly sales figures to receipts for business travel can help you stay organised. It’s also wise to consider using a professional service to oversee your bookkeeping if you’re a sole trader to help make sure this doesn’t fall by the wayside. Staying organised can allow you to make business calculations quickly. It can ensure you don’t miss important deadlines, like to submit your yearly taxes. It can also allow you to know things like how much you’re spending on your staff, and if you’re able to invest in them and when.

Keeping on top of your bookkeeping can also help you with your business planning, particularly when developing your company. For instance, having an accurate record of your finances can help you make quick decisions, like deciding to hire a temporary employee to handle a sudden increase in customer calls. Or it could be for making decisions over the long-term, like to launch a new product. Having up-to-date financial data that you understand and can quickly analyse can also help you make the right investments into the right resources. This could involve choosing to apply for a particular business loan to expand a service that you offer.

While developing and growing your business is something to strive for, maintaining your day-to-day ingoings and outgoings, so that your business stays afloat, should be a priority. Staying on top of your bookkeeping, from recording your bill payments and when they’re due, to detailing your monthly operation costs, can help make sure you maintain a steady cash flow. By doing this, you can know how much is coming in and going out of your business each day, week and month, all through your business’s highs and lows. This can help to minimise risk and make sure you’re more prepared for the unexpected if things take a turn for the worst. This includes thing like making sure you have sufficient funds to settle payments with suppliers if your business experiences a sudden drop in sales.

A big part of business development is forecasting, which can give you an idea of where your business finances will be in the future. Ensuring you stay on top of your bookkeeping can help give you the information and data that you need to put together financial forecasts of each area of your business. This can help give you an accurate picture of your company’s finances in the short-term future, or years down the line. You could predict your product profits, for instance, month by month or year on year. Or you could estimate your operation costs five or ten years down the line to know whether it’s safe to start expanding an area of your business.