Learn

The rules every set of books is built on.

Where every transaction is written down first: the day books, the cash book and petty cash.

Matching the cash book to the bank statement, and explaining every difference.

Charging it, reclaiming it and working out what is owed to HMRC.

Keeping the total owed by customers in step with each customer's own account.

The paperwork behind every sale on credit: what each document is for, who sends it, and what goes into the books.

Build an invoice from line totals to the gross amount, take off trade, bulk and prompt payment discounts, and check a supplier's invoice before it is paid.

How accounts, customers and suppliers are coded, which ledger each account lives in, and how batch totals catch mistakes.

Write up the sales day book and the sales returns day book with VAT, then post them to the general ledger and to each customer's account.

From a pile of supplier invoices to the ledgers: write up the purchases day books, post them, and record a discount for paying early.

Keep track of who owes you and who you owe: read the accounts, chase what is late, agree supplier statements and plan what to pay.

Cash, cheques, cards and bank transfers: how each one works, what it costs, how fast it is and when to use it.

Write up a cash book with analysis columns and VAT, balance it at the month end and post it to the ledgers.

A small float of notes and coins for small costs: how to run it, record it, top it up and prove that nothing is missing.

Read a business bank statement, bring the cash book up to date from it, and prove the two agree with a bank reconciliation statement.

The checks that keep a business's money safe: paying in, approving payments, guarding cash, splitting duties and spotting a payment that looks wrong.

The book of prime entry for everything that has no day book: opening entries, write-offs, one-off transactions and corrections.

Six kinds of error leave the trial balance agreeing. Learn to name each one, see what it does to the figures and write the journal that corrects it.

When the trial balance will not agree: park the difference in a suspense account, find the errors, clear it with journals and redraft the trial balance.

The purchases ledger control account and the VAT control account: what goes into each one, and how to prove the balance is right.

How a month's payroll gets into the books: the wages expense, what is owed to HMRC and the pension provider, and the wages control account.

The checks a bookkeeper runs before anyone relies on the month's figures: what each one proves, what to look out for, and who to tell.

Output tax and input tax, the three rates, what is exempt, who has to register, and how to take VAT out of a price.

What a VAT invoice has to show, the date its VAT falls due, the short form for small sales, credit notes and rounding.

Follow VAT from the day books and the cash book into the VAT control account, and deal with VAT that cannot be claimed.

The nine boxes of the UK VAT return: what goes in each one, how to work the figures out from the books, and who pays whom at the end.

Cash accounting, the flat rate scheme and annual accounting, how to put a mistake right, and the digital records that HMRC expects.

For anyone with a job: what each line of a payslip means, how gross pay becomes net pay, and how to check the figures.

How pay is built up before any deductions: salaries, hourly pay, overtime, commission, bonuses, piecework and time off.

What comes off gross pay and why: income tax through PAYE, National Insurance, pension, student loans and the rest.

Pay a whole team: from gross to net for everyone, what the employer pays on top, paying HMRC and reporting on time.

The ways a business sorts its costs: by what they are, by whether they can be traced to a product, by how they behave, and by who is responsible.

A cost code says which part of the business a cost belongs to and what kind of cost it is. Build codes, apply them and check them.

Prices change, so the same goods can be given more than one value. Work through FIFO and weighted average cost, and keep an inventory record card.

How production workers are paid and what that does to the cost of the product: time rate, overtime, piecework, bonuses and labour cost per unit.

Rent, heating and salaries belong to no single product. Share them between departments, then charge them to each job by the hour.

Split costs into fixed and variable, and one figure does most of the work: contribution. Use it to find break-even, safety and target sales.

A budget is the plan. A variance is where the month went differently. Build a budget, flex it, and report the differences that matter.

Put each cost and each piece of income into the year it belongs to, with the year-end adjustments and the journals behind them.

Share the cost of an asset over the years it is used: straight line, reducing balance, part years and the year-end journal.

Buying, tracking and selling the assets a business keeps for years: capital expenditure, the asset register, disposals and part exchange.

Some customers never pay and some might not. Write off the lost debts, allow for the doubtful ones, and show receivables at what will be collected.

Count what is left, value it at the lower of cost and net realisable value, put it into the books, and use it to find the cost of goods sold.

One worksheet takes the trial balance through the year-end adjustments to the profit for the year. Learn each pair of columns, then do a whole one.

Turn a sole trader's trial balance into a statement of profit or loss and a statement of financial position, and see where capital and drawings fit.

How to rebuild a year's figures when the books are missing: the accounting equation, control accounts, the bank, and mark-up and margin.

How partners share a profit: the agreement, the appropriation account, capital and current accounts, and the partnership's statement of financial position.

What happens in the books when a partner joins, a partner retires or the profit share changes, and why goodwill sits at the centre of each one.

How a company's accounts differ from a sole trader's: shares, reserves, dividends, corporation tax, and the people who read the result.

The ideas behind every set of accounts, and the standards of behaviour expected of the people who prepare them.

Is the business making enough from what it sells? Margins, mark-up, return on capital and where the money goes.

Can the business pay what it owes in the coming months? The current ratio, the quick ratio, working capital and what they mean.

How long cash is tied up between paying a supplier and being paid by a customer, counted in days, and how to shorten it.

Profit does not pay the bills, cash does. Build a cash budget month by month, spot a shortfall early and decide what to do.

Start your records the right way: keep business money apart, know what to keep, and build a simple income and expenses record.

From the invoice to the money in the bank: write an invoice, set terms, record what comes in and chase what does not.

Which costs belong in the business record, how to split a cost that is partly private, and the sums for mileage and working from home.

What Self Assessment asks of a sole trader: the tax year, the dates, the totals for the return, payments on account and saving for the bill.

Where a spreadsheet starts: how cells are named, how a formula is written, and why a total comes out right or wrong.

The functions an office uses every day: averages, counts, totals by name, rounding and percentages.

Make a sheet decide for itself: show one thing or another with IF, join tests with AND and OR, and flag the invoices that are overdue.

Fetch a price, a name or a credit limit from a list with VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, and INDEX with MATCH. Then fix the lookups that fail.

How a spreadsheet stores dates, how to count days and work out due dates, and how to join, split and tidy text that arrives in a mess.

Turn a long list into answers: sort it, filter it, total it by customer or by month with a pivot table, and check the result.

Work out a percentage of an amount, a rise or a cut, the amount before a change, and the gap between two rates.

Add VAT to a price and take it back out, work out discounts and sale prices, and tell mark-up from margin.

Round money and large figures the right way, and find the mean, the median and the mode of a set of figures.

Share an amount in a ratio, compare prices by the unit, and work out simple and compound interest on a loan or savings.