In my experience owners of small businesses regard the annual "year end" accounting exercise as a necessary evil. Something the government makes them do so that the business can be assessed for income tax.

In recent years Australian business's have also been obliged to make BAS returns declaring, amongst other things, how much GST the business has paid and how much it has collected.

Both exercises appear to benefit the government's more than the business and the only person making any money is their accountant.

This is understandable, but it doesn't have to be this way.

A business's accounts can serve many purposes in addition to the obvious compliance.

• they can provide vital information to management;

• they can form the basis of ongoing planning;

• they are the basis of any business analysis.

To achieve this the business's accounting system needs careful planning and must be maintained diligently and accurately.

The accounting software available for small business does not automatically serve these purposes.

Each business is unique so it would be difficult for the designers to provide software specific to each business. As a result the standard way in which the accounting software works is such that it complies with what the government want since this is known.

However, with careful planning and some additional applications it is possible to utilise current accounting/bookkeeping software to deliver on time decision-making information to managers and business owners.

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