1.4: Record Keeping

How to keep daily records

The most important daily records you need are a receipt book for recording income and petty cash vouchers for recording small expenses.A receipt book. These are quite cheap and you can buy them at a local stationery store. When anyone hands any money to the business you must give him or her receipt that shows the amount they gave you. You give the original receipt to the person and leave the duplicate in your receipt book. When you receive money deposit it in the bank as soon as possible. It must never be used as petty cash. Keep the deposit slip as a record and write the receipt number on it. Here is an example of a receipt:

Petty cash vouchers – you should always keep some money for small payments. If you need R5 for stamps or milk you will use petty cash to make these payments.

Petty cash should only be used for small expenses – pay everything else by cheque since it is much safer. The manager should decide how much money should be kept as petty cash. The bookkeeper uses a cheque to draw enough out of the bank each month for petty cash. This could be R500 to R1 000 depending on what money you spend each month on small things. The bookkeeper should put whatever is spent each month back into the cash box. This is called an imprest system. All the petty cash that is spent must be recorded on a petty cash voucher that you can buy cheaply from a stationery shop. The till slips, cash slips or invoices that you get when you pay for something must be kept as well. These slips should be fixed to the petty cash vouchers.

How to keep monthly records

A petty cash book At the end of each month the bookkeeper should record the information from all the petty cash vouchers into the petty cash book. An ordinary school exercise book can be used for the petty cash book. Draw TWO columns on the right-hand side of a page called INCOME and EXPENDITURE. Here is an example:

Petty cash book for April 2005

Under INCOME write in the amount the bookkeeper drew out of the bank and put in the petty cash box. Under expenditure record all the petty cash vouchers. At the end of the month you must also balance the petty cash book. To balance the petty cash book you must:

1. Add up the expenditure column to get a total. This is called TOTAL EXPENDITURE.

2. Add together the balance you had in the beginning of the month plus the income during the month. Then subtract the total expenditure from this amount. This is the BALANCE at the end of the month.

3. Check that the balance is the same amount as the money left in the petty cash box. The bookkeeper must then go to the bank and draw out the amount under total expenditure so that the petty cash has the same amount of money again. This must be recorded under INCOME on the page in the petty cash book for the next month.