Bookkeeping for electricians: what to track, how often, and what your accountant actually needs

The records you need

• Every quote and invoice you issue, with its GST.
• Every payment received, matched to its invoice.
• Every business expense, with a receipt or tax invoice.
• Payments to subcontractors, with their ABN, for TPAR.
• Vehicle use: either a logbook or a record of business kilometres.
• Tools and equipment over the instant asset write-off threshold, so they can be depreciated.
• Your licence, insurance and registration renewals, which are deductible and have dates you cannot miss.

The routine

Daily, on site or in the van: invoice the job when it finishes, and enter any expense the moment you pay it, with a photo of the receipt. That is two minutes.

Weekly, at smoko: record the payments that came in, look at who is late, and send the reminders. Ten minutes.

Monthly: check the month's income and expenses look right, reconcile against the bank statement, and note anything missing a receipt. Half an hour.

Quarterly: BAS, which is now three totals from records that already exist.

Expense categories that matter for a sparky

• Materials, tied to the job they were for, so you can see the profit on each job and not just overall.
• Tools and test equipment. Small items are expensed; larger ones are assets.
• Vehicle: fuel, servicing, registration, insurance, and the business-use percentage.
• Phone and internet.
• Insurance: public liability and any tools cover.
• Licences, registrations, training and CPD.
• Subcontractors, recorded separately from other expenses because of TPAR.
• Software subscriptions, which renew quietly and are easy to forget to claim.

Job profitability, not just turnover

The number most sparkies never see is profit per job. Turnover can look healthy while a few underquoted jobs quietly lose money. When materials and subbie costs are recorded against the job, the margin on each one is visible, and your next quote gets better because of it.

What to give your accountant

At tax time your accountant needs, for the financial year:

• Income by month, and the GST on it.
• Expenses by category, with GST, and a note of anything without a receipt.
• Subcontractor payments with ABNs.
• An asset list with purchase dates and costs.
• Vehicle kilometres or the logbook.
• Your BAS lodgements for the year.

If your records are in one place, this is one export. SmokoBooks produces an Excel workbook with all of it in one click, so the accountant's time, which you pay for, goes on advice rather than sorting.

On your own PC, not a subscription to someone's cloud

Where the books live is worth a thought. Cloud accounting suits businesses with staff and an external bookkeeper. For a one-person electrical business, software that runs on your own Windows PC, keeps the data in a folder you control and backs it up daily, is simpler, cheaper and does not stop working when the internet does. That is the approach SmokoBooks takes.

Common questions