Be in the know with multiple businesses.

After helping set up many small businesses in South London, there are a few things you should know if you own multiple businesses to save hassle down the road.

Separate accounts for each business

Whether this is Dext, Xero or Bank accounts. If you are thinking of or have opened a new business you need to make sure that you keep the two entities separate from each other. If a cost or sale is for Company A this needs to be kept with Company A and not be confused and put into Company B.

This can cause a lot of issues if there are errors and mistakes made, which can result in more costs to incur to fix the issue.

Payments are sent to the correct bank account

Any payment for sales needs to be sent to the correct company. Customers would expect that if they are buying a product from Company A that this is where their money would end up. It also allows the business performance to be shown correctly in any reports and publications for taxes.

This is also the case with PayPal and Amazon accounts, each business needs to have its own unique accounts.

Documents sent to the correct Dext account

Dext is where things can get confusing, when a new company is created there will need to be a new Dext account created along with a new Xero account.

With Dext there needs to be separate logins for each company. When uploading expense invoices to one company it can be easy to forget and upload documents for the second company into the same account. There needs to be triple checks to make sure that you are logged into the correct company so that the costs are associated to the relevant company for the bookkeeping. This needs to be checked when using the email in option or using the website or the app.

We can support with this to make sure that the details are as different as possible to prevent confusion.

Use of the same supplier

If you end up using the same suppliers for your businesses you will need to make sure that they are clear of the seperate business entities, the easiest way to avoid the confusion is to set up seperate email accounts and contact details for each business so that they can be more easily associated with the correct business.

You should make sure with any communication it is made clear which company the enquiry is relating to.

Invoices are addressed to the correct business

Invoices that are sent out or received need to be addressed to the correct company else they wont be valid.

Any expense for the company needs to have the correct business name and address on it. If you have multiple businesses this is more important to make sure that a cost is associated to the correct company so that any money out of the bank account can then be matched to the corresponding invoice.