I try to make it a rule to do my bookkeeping on a weekly basis. By that I mean statement reconciliations, filing of papers, etc – I do the data entry daily as I complete jobs for clients.
However, sometimes I get behind with the busy-ness of life, and wouldn’t you know it, there are sometimes debits on my statement and I don’t recall the business name or what it was for. I used to have to write ‘miscellaneous’ for the time being until I could remember what it was the amount was or what happened on that day.
I say ‘used to’ because I hit upon a brainwave and perhaps some of you have come across this too? Googling the name that’s showing on my statement! And it’s amazing because often the name showing on my statement is a different name to the actual shop I went into or the service I purchased from online. But often there’s enough info in the Google search to trigger a memory of what it was I bought. Just thought this little hint might help some of you too!
Candy says
*laugh* You could have just asked me… Think about getting 12 months worth of statements with random store names and no notes from the person doing the purchasing because they have no idea. Yeah. Google is my friend. LOL
(I’m a bookkeeper) 🙂
Lisa Olinda says
What a great idea. I also hate to write “miscellaneous” in my check register. Thanks for the tip.
Kirk Ward says
Hi Kathie,
I’m a retired accountant and am especially frustrated by the names I see posted to my account. I find it almost impossible to tell what charge matches up with what receipt because of the short abbreviations that are used, and the fact that many merchants use clearinghouses to process their collections and the same clearinghouse name shows up on post after post each and every time. I tried Googling, but sometimes that even fails.