What We Review in Your Bookkeeping Health Check?
Our Bookkeeping Health Check is a detailed, methodical review designed to uncover errors, missing entries and inconsistencies that may affect the accuracy of your accounts. As trusted bookkeepers in London, St Albans and Hertfordshire, we look beyond the surface to ensure every figure in your accounting software is correct, compliant and aligned with your real financial activity.
Below are the key areas we examine during the Health Check:
1. Balance Review & Reconciliation
As part of our bookkeeping health check St Albans, we compare your key financial balances against your accounting software to identify missing entries, duplicated invoices, incorrect allocations and unreconciled transactions. This ensures the foundations of your bookkeeping are accurate before moving forward.
Supplier Statements
We cross-check supplier statements with your records to spot missing invoices, duplicates, incorrect allocations and any discrepancies affecting your creditor balances.
Bank Accounts
Every transaction is reconciled to ensure your bank balance matches your accounting software. This highlights missing payments, duplicated entries and feed errors.
Credit Card Accounts
We ensure all credit card purchases including fuel, tools, subscriptions and online transactions are recorded correctly and not missing from your accounts.
Loans & Interest
Loan balances are checked against lender statements to ensure capital and interest are separated accurately, and all repayments are correctly recorded.
HMRC Liabilities (PAYE, VAT, CIS)
We verify that your PAYE, VAT and CIS balances match HMRC records. Inaccurate HMRC liabilities are one of the most common issues identified during a bookkeeping review in St Albans.
Aged Debtors & Creditors
We review your unpaid customer invoices and outstanding supplier bills to identify any overdue amounts that have already been paid, duplicated invoices, unallocated credit notes and incorrect outstanding balances. Ensuring your debtor and creditor reports are accurate is essential for effective cashflow planning and reliable financial reporting.
2. Profit & Loss Accuracy Review
Once all balances have been corrected and reconciled, we review your Profit & Loss account to ensure it reflects your true business activity. This forms a key part of our bookkeeping audit Hertfordshire service.
Missing Business Costs
Many business expenses are paid personally and never claimed. We review your records to identify any missing costs such as insurance, subscriptions, phone and internet bills, tools and materials, utilities, and rent or workspace contributions. Including these expenses ensures your accounts reflect the true cost of running your business and can significantly reduce your taxable profit and your tax bill.
Miscoded Transactions
Incorrectly categorised income or expenses can distort your profitability and financial reporting. We check for issues such as personal items recorded as business costs, tools entered as materials instead of assets, income allocated to the wrong revenue category, or expenses placed under inappropriate codes. By correcting these errors, we ensure accurate reporting and full HMRC compliance
VAT on Expenses (Claimed Correctly)
We carefully review VAT across your expenses to confirm that VAT has not been claimed without receipts, that allowable VAT has been correctly reclaimed, and that reverse charge VAT has been applied properly where required. We also check for any incorrect VAT codes used within your bookkeeping. This thorough review protects your business from VAT errors and potential penalties.
Why This Health Check Matters
By reviewing these areas in detail, we help ensure your accounts are accurate, reliable, and fully compliant. Business owners across St Albans, Hertfordshire, London and surrounding areas choose Carter Bookkeeping Services Limited for Health Checks because we don’t just identify problems we fix them.
Our Bookkeeping Health Check Services gives you clarity, confidence and the reassurance that your accounts are up to date, compliant and ready for VAT returns, year-end accounts and business decision-making