What does a bookkeeper do?

However, depending on where your retail store currently is from a revenue standpoint, bringing on a team might not be possible. The good news is that there are several accounting processes you can do yourself. At MyaccountsConsultant, we truly understand the business retail accounting financial obstacles of bookkeeping for retailers are confronted with, and we’ll conquer them together. We offer comprehensive retail accounting, bookkeeping, Accounts Payables & Receivable, Cash Flow and tax planning services that will fit your financial needs.

Let’s assume you took a physical inventory count at the beginning of the quarter, and you know the actual cost of your inventory as of that date was $80,000. Reviewing the reports from your point of sale system you see that, as of the end of the quarter, your sales totaled $30,000. Finally, throughout the quarter, you purchased new yarn and accessories, which cost a total of $10,000. The weighted average method of inventory costing is often used when inventory is not perishable but stock can still easily be rotated or intermingled. LIFO inventory costing is essentially the reverse of FIFO inventory costing. The LIFO method assumes the most recent items entered into your inventory will be the ones to sell first.

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Instead of worrying about manually completing accounting tasks, your retail accounting software will automatically produce reports, reconcile accounts, and keep your books up to date. Good bookkeepers help business owners manage their finances by documenting transactions, paying and issuing invoices, generating reports, and recording accurate financial data. But what do all of these figures really mean, and where do you go from there?

This Bookkeeper job description template is optimized for posting on online job boards or careers pages. Add your specific bookkeeping responsibilities to attract the most qualified candidates for your company. Bookkeepers are not expected to have a four-year or five-year college degree in accounting. Today’s bookkeeper must be comfortable with accounting software such as QuickBooks and electronic worksheets. Being proficient with accounting software allows a bookkeeper to stand out from the others. If 50 items were first purchased for $5 and later on 50 more items were purchased at $7.5, then under the LIFO method, the first items sold would be assigned the cost of $7.5.

Best Accounting Software for Small Retail Businesses of October 2023

At MAC, we genuinely recognize that bookkeeping for retail business is a complex process involving many transactions. We offer an extensive list of wholesale and retail accounting and tax preparation services that will suit your requirements and keep your profits up. We’re responsive to the fact that retail businesses need to continually keep an eye on their expenditures. Therefore we provide daily, weekly and monthly reports that enable you to monitor where exactly your money is going and plan well in advance with bookkeeping for retail store. Since most retail business owners aren’t professional accountants, using reliable accounting software like Synder is highly recommended.

The IRS allows you to use any method you want to value your inventory for tax purposes. The caveat is, once you choose a method you have to stick with it, unless you get permission from the IRS to change your costing method. This rule is in place to keep business owners from “gaming the system” by frequently switching costing methods to get the best tax advantages. Inventory is actually considered an asset — something your business owns, which is recorded on your business’s balance sheet — until you sell it or account for it as shrinkage from theft or damage. At that point, the expense for the purchase of the inventory is recorded as cost of sales (COS) or cost of goods sold(COGS) on your profit and loss statement. Accountants use the records a bookkeeper provides and their own expertise to help build budgets, assess finances, and make business decisions.

What is bookkeeping?

To help illustrate the above retail accounting approaches, let’s look at an example. Let’s also say you have a 30% markup on all items and you know that your inventory was valued at $100,000 last quarter. On the income statement, you track revenue, or all of the money your business is earning. From the revenue, you subtract the cost of goods sold that you’ve calculated using one of the methods detailed above.

The responsibilities you need someone to fulfill depend on the bookkeeper or bookkeeping service that your business needs. Each bookkeeping professional has their own expertise, just like each business has unique financial circumstances and bookkeeping needs. The two foundational tasks in small business bookkeeping are data entry and bank reconciliation. Let’s walk through the core duties, common additional duties, and advanced bookkeeping.

Quarterly or Monthly Financial Reporting

Essentially, the goal is to keep track of the amount of inventory you have in stock at any given time. This information is vital from the retail accounting perspective as it will provide you with accurate cost and forecast information. We provide the best accounting services for the proper maintenance of your accounts.

On one side of the balance sheet, you list your assets, such as equipment. On the other side, you list your liabilities, such as business credit cards. Your assets minus your liabilities equals your equity, which is the value of your business outside of what you owe. These three things – assets, liability, and equity – should always balance each other, hence the name of this document. Following the FIFO method, you’ll take 30 and multiply it by 0.05 and add that to 20 multiplied by 0.07. The cost of goods sold is $2.90, and the cost of your ending inventory (the inventory you have left) is $1.85 (five dice at 7 cents plus 15 dice at 10 cents).

Learn how QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping can help you streamline your bookkeeping and free up time spent on finances. Bookkeepers offer support to a number of organizations, including small businesses, nonprofits, and corporations. They play a vital role in managing a business’s finances by documenting transactions, generating reports, and assisting with accounting efforts.

• The resulting number is the amount you have left to pay your overhead costs.
• You can explore accounting software options in our review of QuickBooks and our review of Xero.
• As an example, Acme recently had a large shipment of plastic flamingos from PF Co. that cost $750.50 wholesale.
• The weighted average method of inventory costing is often used when inventory is not perishable but stock can still easily be rotated or intermingled.

Other companies like a law office don’t have to worry about keeping track of products or stock levels. The FIFO method of inventory costing assumes the first items entered into your inventory are the first items you sell. This costing method is most often used when inventory is perishable and is a favorite for food retailers. Before making a decision about which inventory costing method to use for your taxes, speak with your accountant.