BASIC GUIDE TO BOOKKEEPING

This is a guide for those of you who know absolutely nothing about bookkeeping or accounting. It is short, and packed with information. It is not a comprehensive guide to bookkeeping, very far from it. All it does is skim the surface. But hopefully it will provide you with enough information to get you started.

Although it's based around Adminsoft Accounts, much of it is applicable to most other accounting systems.

Just to make things a little more difficult, accounting terms vary from country to country. They tend to fall into two categories: those used in the United Kingdom, and those used in the United States and most of the rest of the world. So I've actually created two guides to try and make things a little easier:


Basic guide for the United Kingdom


Basic guide for the United States and the rest of the world


If you require a detailed guide on using Adminsoft Accounts, please consider purchasing the book Free Accounting with Free Software written by Yogesh Patel (details on the left). This is an excellent, detailed introduction to bookkeeping based on Adminsoft Accounts. It's isn't a user guide to the software, so does not cover everything the software does. It does not really cover Stock/Inventory Control, and doesn't cover Human Resources or Payroll. But if you want to know how to record your sales, purchases, payments, and produce Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet reports, this book will get you there.