---
title: "Doing your own books, and knowing when to stop"
source: https://www.lskhata.com/blog/bookkeeping-without-an-accountant
category: "Stock & money"
language: en
published: 2026-09-04
reading_time: 8 min
---

# Doing your own books, and knowing when to stop

_Most of a small shop's bookkeeping is recording, and software is good at that. Where it stops being recording and becomes a decision you sign._

## In short
- Recording and deciding are different jobs. Software is good at the first and has no business doing the second.
- Almost everything that goes wrong in a small shop's books is a gap in recording, not a failure of expertise.
- Good records make an accountant cheaper, because you are paying for judgement rather than for data entry.
- Anything you sign — a filing, a rate, a position on what is deductible — needs a person, in your country.

Small-shop bookkeeping gets talked about as though it were one skill. It is two, and they are not equally hard. One is recording what happened. The other is deciding what it means for what you owe. Software is genuinely good at the first, and should stay out of the second.

_[Figure: Everything on the left is recording, and it should happen without you thinking about it. Everything on the right is a judgement with your name on it.]_

### The recording half, which is most of it

Nearly every problem a small shop has with its books is a gap in recording rather than a gap in expertise. A sale that was never entered. An expense paid in cash and forgotten by evening. A stock count from four months ago. None of those needs an accountant to prevent — they need capture at the moment it happens.

- Sales, with the date and how the money arrived — cash, UPI or credit.
- Purchases, with what you were actually charged rather than what you expected.
- Expenses, entered when the money leaves rather than at month end.
- What each customer owes, kept as a running balance rather than reconstructed from bills.
- Stock, counted in sections often enough that the number is believable.

Keep those five current and you have done the part that actually determines whether your books are any good. Khata records all five, including an accounting journal, expenses against cash and wallet accounts, a separation between business and personal money, and a profit and loss you can read without training.

**The habit that matters more than the software.** Close the day, every day. Five minutes comparing what the drawer holds against what the app says catches a mistake while you can still remember the customer. A week later it is archaeology.

### The deciding half, which is not yours to guess

Then there is the other side of the line, and it does not get easier with better software.

- Whether you are required to register, and at what turnover.
- Which tax rate applies to a particular thing you sell.
- What counts as a business expense and what does not.
- What you must file, on what date, in your country.
- Anything you put your name to.

These vary by country, by turnover and by what you sell, and they change. Software that answered them confidently would be doing you a disservice, because the confidence would be the same whether or not the answer was still current.

**What Khata does not do here, plainly.** It has no filing calendar outside India and Nepal, it does not know your country's tax rates, and it will not generate an e-invoice or an IRN anywhere. It records what your business did. What you owe on that is a question for a person in your jurisdiction.

### Why good records make an accountant cheaper

The bill from an accountant is mostly time, and the time is mostly spent turning a carrier bag of receipts into something that can be reasoned about. If you arrive with that already done, you are buying judgement instead of data entry — which is the thing you actually wanted and the thing they are actually good at.

| What you bring | What you are paying for |
| --- | --- |
| A bag of receipts | Someone typing, at professional rates |
| A year of complete records | Answers to questions you could not settle |
| Records with a gap in March | Reconstruction, and a caveat on the result |

### The signals that you have crossed the line

1. **You are guessing about a rate or a deadline** — A guess that is wrong compounds quietly until somebody asks. This is the cheapest possible moment to make a phone call.
2. **Your turnover is approaching a registration threshold** — The rules on either side of that line differ, and being on the wrong side of it by accident is expensive.
3. **You are about to sign something** — A filing carries your name whether or not the number came from software. Have someone look at it.
4. **You have started avoiding your own reports** — That usually means you no longer trust them, and untrusted records get abandoned rather than fixed. Get someone to check the shape of them once, and start again from a number you believe.

Do the recording yourself, daily, and let it be boring. Hand over the judgement. That division holds for almost every small shop, and it does not change when the software gets better.

## Common questions

**Can I do my own bookkeeping for a small shop?**

The recording half, yes, and most shops should. Sales, purchases, expenses, what customers owe and what stock is on hand are all things you can capture as they happen, and capturing them as they happen is most of the battle. What you should not do alone is decide what you must file, which rate applies, or what counts as deductible — those are judgements with consequences, and they differ by country and by turnover.

**Do I still need an accountant if I use accounting software?**

For most registered businesses, yes, and the software makes them cheaper rather than unnecessary. An accountant's time is expensive when it is spent typing your receipts and cheap when it is spent on the question you actually needed answered. Complete records move their time from the first to the second.

**What records does a small shop actually need to keep?**

Sales with dates and how they were paid, purchases with what you were charged, expenses as money leaves, what each customer owes, and stock counted often enough to be believable. If those five are current, almost any question you or an accountant later asks is answerable.

**How often should I update my books?**

Daily for takings, and at the moment it happens for anything else. The reason is not diligence — it is that you can still remember. A five-minute closing routine at the end of each day catches mistakes while the day is recoverable, and it is far less work than reconstructing a week.

**Does Khata keep accounting records?**

Yes — alongside billing and stock it keeps expenses, cash and wallet accounts, an accounting journal, business and personal separation, a daily closing reconciliation and a profit and loss. What it does not have is a filing calendar for most countries: reminders for tax deadlines exist for India and Nepal only, and everywhere else it tracks your trading and leaves the filing dates to you and your accountant.