- March 31, 2019
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Accounting Advice
Eliminate oversight and errors in your pest control or lawn care business with checklists. All systems need the proper controls in place to make them airtight and dependable.
Whether your checklist is a physical printout or a digital spreadsheet, it’s not enough to just have a checkmark next to a task. You have to have a spot where someone initials it, so you know who did it. You need to record the date when the task was completed. And then make note of any follow up that’s necessary.
Here’s an example of the items listed on a checklist used to do a closeout at the end of each month:
1. Run a sales report that shows revenue by service.
2. Run a payment report with all the deposits made.
3. Run a sales tax report to show which jurisdictions you have collected sales tax in and to whom you have to remit.
4. Take all that information and journalize it into your general ledger system.
5. Review each account step by step to make sure everything was coded correctly.
6. Once you know all the work has been posted, create customer statements and send them out.
7. Make sure the renewals for the upcoming month get sent out.
8. Actually push the button and close the month in the computer, so you can start fresh with the next month.
9. After the close is done, produce all the reports that tell you exactly where you are and how you’ve done.
Checklists can be used for many of your processes. For instance, a valuable checklist in the pest and lawn business is an end-of-day checklist for technicians to submit when they return at night. This document will determine if everything that was supposed to be covered was actually covered. It will also point out any follow-ups that are necessary for the technician, manager or anyone else.
Checklists are a great way to take a lot of the stress out of the day. Any structure you can provide is helpful to both the individual and the organization. You want to make the day boring. Today has to be just like yesterday and the day before, so you don’t have to reinvent your business everyday.
