First of all, congratulations! We know it’s taken you a lot of hard work, courage, and drive to get here. Now, regardless of what kind of company you’re running, whether you’re going it solo or you’ve formed a partnership or even incorporated your business, you are absolutely going to need an organized accounting system if you want your business to function properly and, ultimately grow. Now bookkeeping might not be your thing—and that’s OK! For lots of people, their “accounting system” consists of a folder or file cabinet or shoebox stuffed haphazardly with receipts and paperwork. While you might think this kind of “system” is fine in the short term, it’s bound to cause chaos and headaches down the line—and that doesn’t really cut it if you’re serious about your business. The sooner you get set up with the right accounting software, the sooner you can get your business on track to financial well-being. Whether you have hired (or plan to hire) a part-time bookkeeper, have a dedicated finance person on your team, or will be tackling the books yourself, getting your accounting system in place is crucial. And so, without further ado, let’s take a look at how you can set up your new business in Kashoo! Step 1: First Things First (Before You Set up Kashoo) There are a few key pieces of information you will want to gather before getting started with Kashoo. First off, we’ll need your legal company name and address (which will be used on customer invoices), as well as your business number, Federal Tax ID or EIN (Employer Identification Number). Next, you’ll need to determine your fiscal year. This is sometimes referred to as the “financial year,” and is often the same as the calendar year (January 1 – December 31), but can vary depending on your business. (Check out Stuff To Do Before Using Kashoo for more details.) And finally, if your business collects sales tax, you’ll need your sales tax information (registration number, percentage rates, filing frequency, and filing dates). Got all that? Good! Now it’s time to sign up with Kashoo and get your account started. Step 2: Set up Your Profiles Now you’re ready to set up your Business Profile, as well as My Profile. We have a handy video over on our support page, Setting Up Business Profile and My Profile, which explains everything you need to enter in your Business Profile (such as company name, address, and email, fiscal year, currencies, and date format). When setting up My Profile, you’ll have the choice to opt in to beta test new Kashoo features, and you can also let us know if you are an accounting professional so that your accounts will automatically be sorted by account number (rather than alphabetically). (Note: unlike your Business Profile, My Profile is used solely for billing purposes, so the information you enter here will not show on your invoices.) Step 3: Chart of Accounts and Opening Balances Not sure what a Chart of Accounts is? Our recent blog post, What is a Chart of Accounts, is a great place to start (and you may also want to check out our support article, What is an Account? too). As a business, you need to have a clearly organized way to track your income and expenses for your own use as well as for tax purposes. Getting your Chart of Accounts in order from the get-go will make using Kashoo an easy, seamless experience. We have a full run-down and the different types of accounts you can set up in Kashoo, as well as a video guide over on our support article, Setting Up Accounts. Your opening balance is the very first entry in your business’ accounts (or, once you’ve gotten the ball rolling with your bookkeeping, it’s the balance carried over from one accounting period into the next one). The funds for the opening balance can come from a few different sources, such as previous years’ earnings, a bank loan, or investment from the business owner(s). Learn more about opening balances here: Entering Opening Balances. Step 4: Adding your Contacts (Customers and Vendors) Have contacts stored in a CSV, Excel file (97-2003), or vCard file? Importing them into Kashoo is easy. If you need more help, check out our support article on importing contacts. Don’t have ready-made contact files to import? You can also set up your customer and vendor pages by entering each contact separately. This simple process is the same for both the Customers and Vendors page, and all the instructions you’ll need are right here: Setting Up Customers and Vendors. Step 5: Sales Taxes As a small business, you may need to charge sales tax on the goods and services your company sells. Taxes may not be your favourite subject, but no matter where in the world your business is located, Kashoo can help you easily customize your tax settings so that sales taxes are automatically tracked—whether it’s for goods and services sold or for your company expenses. Learn more about setting up taxes. (And for the slightly more ambitious, here’s the advanced version.) ‘ Step 6: Setting up Items What are items in accounting? Simply put, items are things your company buys or sells on a regular basis. Entering items in Kashoo allows you to enter income and expenses faster, and will automatically fill out fields for description, price, and taxes when creating a customer invoice. Find out more about this set up process on Setting Up Items. And there you have it: the first steps to setting up your new business with Kashoo! For more in-depth info on setting up both new and existing businesses with Kashoo, check out our Set Up Master Guide. If you have any questions about setting up an accounting system for your small business, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch at answers@kashoo.com, and stay tuned to our blog for more articles on Kashoo and the world of small business accounting.
