As a small business owner, you probably wear many hats, one of which is bookkeeping. It can be a daunting task, especially if you don't have a background in accounting. However, bookkeeping mistakes can be costly, and even lead to financial chaos. In this blog, we'll discuss five common bookkeeping mistakes and provide tips on how to avoid them.

At Catching Numbers Inc, we specialize in providing bookkeeping services to small businesses. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you avoid these common mistakes and stay on top of your finances.

1. Not keeping receipts and records:

One of the most common bookkeeping mistakes is not keeping receipts and records. This can lead to inaccurate financial reports, missed deductions, and even legal trouble if you're audited. To avoid this, make sure to keep all receipts and records organized and up to date. You can use cloud-based software to keep everything in one place and easily accessible. At "Catching Numbers Inc", we can help you set up a system for organizing your receipts and records, and ensure that your financial reports are accurate and up to date.

2. Mixing personal and business finances:

Mixing personal and business finances is a common mistake that can make bookkeeping a nightmare. This can lead to a lack of clarity on business expenses, missed deductions, and a distorted view of your business's financial health. To avoid this, open a separate bank account for your business, use a separate credit card for business expenses, and avoid using personal funds for business expenses. 

3. Not reconciling accounts regularly:

Failing to reconcile your accounts regularly is another common bookkeeping mistake. Reconciliation ensures that your records match your bank statements and helps you identify discrepancies or errors. To avoid this, reconcile your accounts on a monthly basis and investigate any discrepancies as soon as possible.

4. Forgetting to record all expenses:

It's easy to forget to record expenses, especially small ones like coffee or parking fees. However, these small expenses can add up and impact your financial reports. To avoid this, keep a log of all expenses, no matter how small. You can also use a mobile app to track expenses on the go.

5. Not categorizing expenses correctly:

Categorizing expenses incorrectly can lead to inaccurate financial reports and missed deductions. For example, if you categorize a business expense as personal, you may miss out on a deduction that could save you money. To avoid this, make sure to categorize expenses correctly and consistently. You can also use software that can learn from your categorization habits to automate the process.


Bookkeeping may not be the most exciting part of running a business, but it's essential for your financial health. By avoiding these common bookkeeping mistakes, you can ensure that your records are accurate and up to date, and have a better understanding of your business's financial health.

At Catching Numbers Inc, we specialize in providing bookkeeping services to small businesses. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you avoid these common mistakes and stay on top of your finances. Also, be sure to check out our blog post on Why Cloud is our Preferred Method for more information on how to streamline your bookkeeping processes and improve your financial reporting.

More on this topic:

1. "10 Common Bookkeeping Mistakes to Avoid for Small Business Owners": A blog post by Bench that provides additional insight into common bookkeeping mistakes and how to avoid them. [https://bench.co/blog/bookkeeping/common-bookkeeping-mistakes/]
2. "5 Bookkeeping Best Practices for Startups and Small Businesses": A blog post by NerdWallet that provides practical tips for small business owners looking to manage their own bookkeeping. [https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/bookkeeping-best-practices-for-startups-and-small-businesses]www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/bookkeeping-best-practices-for-startups-and-small-businesses

We are often asked why we choose cloud based accounting software such as Xero, Quickbooks and Wave Apps for our customers rather than traditional desktop based software and ERPs. Our decision surprised many of our peers. They’d never heard of cloud based applications and wondered why we didn’t just use the desktop accounting application everyone is using and why carry the risk of putting accounting data on the cloud?

We thought it would be useful to our clients to lay out some  of our favorite features and benefits of cloud accounting. 

• Ease of Use – The interface is pleasing to look at and easy to figure out. For non-accountants, that’s key. Do you want to have to figure out how to use a complicated accounting application or immediately jump in and start processing your transactions. For our team of accountants and bookkeepers, getting up to speed is super quick. Everyone comments immediately how easy and fast it is to use.
• Bank account and credit card feeds – Xero, Quickbooks and Waveapps will automatically feed in account activity directly into the accounting system so you don’t have to manually create transactions. That’s an enormous advantage! Only online applications tend to have this feature.
• Auto-populating and rules – Not only will the activity feed in, these applications will remember how you coded transactions in the past and auto-populate the fields to save you time. Getting even more advanced, you can setup simple and complex rules to code transactions based on conditions.
• Support – Although these applications have a simple interface, something will come up where you need help. They have responsive email and call support teams which is critical for any company. Their help database is also quite extensive and, more importantly, useful. 
• Integrations and Add-Ons - The Marketplace has a massive amount of software applications that integrate with these apps. This is one of the primary reasons we choose cloud apps as our core accounting platform. No matter what a customer throws at us for their business needs, we can find an application that gets us most, if not all, of the way there to an automated solution. This speeds up our reporting capabilities and reduces the chance of error from our accounting team. Whether you are using Shopify, Big Commerce or countless other third party ecommerce apps, they provide integrations for all the applications out there in the market.
• It is Mobile – There are apps for on-the-go accounting which allows you to keep things organized no matter where you are.
• Lots of Reports – Data isn’t of much use to your business if you can’t slice and dice it as needed. These apps have a ton of reports which you can customize and export to Excel or PDF. 
• Real time access - You don't need to wait for the database file to access key financial information or wait for your accountant to close all the transactions before you can make meaningful business decisions. With these cloud applications, you can access the data wherever you are and from any computer, mobile, or tablet.​