Year-end Accounting Tips
Whether you work with an accountant or bookkeeper, or tackle year-end record keeping on your own, you’ll need to make use of the appointment data you’ve entered into Owl Practice during the year.
Here are the three things you’ll need to do in Owl to get ready for year-end accounting:
- Export Session Records – The first step is to use our Accounting Export feature to download a complete history of all the appointment, invoice, fee, and payment data for your accounting year. For most of you, this will likely be January 1 to December 31, 2014. To export your annual data, head to SETTINGS : ACCOUNTING EXPORT. A .csv file will download to your computer which you can then send to your accountant or bookkeeper (it contains no personally identifying information).
- Take A Snapshot Of Accounts Receivable – Your accountant or bookkeeper will also want to know about any outstanding balances your customers may have at year end. These can be easily see in the ACCOUNTS area of Owl Practice, in the green box in the top right corner. As this information changes over time (as people make payments), it’s important to record the total for this number as close to year-end as possible (for example, now). If your clients are all up-to-date on payments, it’s possible this number is zero.
- Record Bad Debt – Appointments that a client has not and will not pay are considered bad debt. Hopefully you don’t have any bad debt, but if you do, here’s how you record it in Owl. Once invoices are beyond 30-days overdue, you can mark them as bad debt in the fourth tab in the ACCOUNTS area as needed. The bad debt total is something you’ll also need to report to your accountant.
That’s it. If you have any challenges with using the feature, or find you need additional information from Owl Practice for your year-end needs, please let us know!
Finally, we hope you get off to a great start with practice life in 2015!
Practice wisely!
