You hired a bookkeeper to give you a bookkeeper who grows your profit. But if you hand over a pile of loose receipts and vague numbers once a quarter, that is nothing close to a clean set of records, and your bookkeeper is stuck chasing the same people week after week instead of finding the profit hiding in your books.
The fix is a small weekly hand-off. It costs you about five minutes if you have a routine, and it is the difference between a bookkeeper who owns your numbers and a bookkeeper who rebuilds them from scratch.
Here is exactly what to give your bookkeeper every week.
1. Bank and credit card statements
Send them the week's statements, or better yet, give them access to the bank feed so they can pull it themselves. Your bookkeeper wants to reconcile every transaction against the money that actually moved.
2. Every invoice you invoiced
Forward each customer invoice you sent this week. Include the done date, the work description, the materials, any holdbacks, and the payment terms. This lets your bookkeeper tie the deposit and the jobs together without asking you at year's end.
3. Every bill and supplier receipt
Materials, subcontractors, equipment rentals, fuel, the lot. Send them the paid bills and receipts. When costs are coded the same way every time, your job-costing stays honest and your profit statements stay accurate.
4. Your crew hours and job logs
Send the completed timesheets and the job log for each active project. Labor needs to land on the job it belongs to. This is how your bookkeeper knows whether a job ran over the estimate.
5. Bank deposits and payments you made
Tell them what hit the account and what left it, especially the big items: deposits received, holdbacks, loan payments, supplier payments. Anything unusual, say so.
6. Payroll and employee changes
New hires, terminations, raises, statutory holiday hours. Keep the employee records current all year, not just in November. This is the single fastest way to keep T4 and source-deduction filings from becoming a mess.
7. Anything you are unsure about
When a transaction is odd, send it over and ask. A bookkeeper would always rather see the weird item than discover it hidden in the books. One question now beats an expensive surprise later.
Make it one weekly routine
Keep a folder, an app, or a scanned stack. On the same day each week, drop these in and send them over. Fifteen minutes. That is the whole routine, and it keeps your records clean so your bookkeeper can actually work on the hard part of the job.
Your bookkeeper is ready when you are
A clean hand-off means your bookkeeper stops cleaning and starts telling you exactly where the profit is going. If the weekly routine still feels like one more job at the end of a long day, that is what we are here for. Book a free call with the Cornerstone Compliance team, and we will take the weekly routine off your plate for good.