Accounting for CPEC Projects
Accounting for CPEC projects is no different from accounting for any other enterprise in Pakistan. As accounting for other sectors/ businesses is mandatory so is accounting and record-keeping for CPEC projects.
Accounting and Bookkeeping for CPEC Projects
CPEC is a big game changer for Pakistan and will help reduce unemployment bringing prosperity and opportunities for various sectors, they added.
However, the key is that the Government will have to bring more transparency in CPEC related projects and issues. More information and openness policy will have to be adopted for financial experts, the speakers opined.
CPEC is a China-Pakistan joint collection projects relating to infrastructure development, funded and financed by China. There will companies in CPEC, businesses, establishments, groups of companies, shops in CPEC.
Accounting for CPEC Projects is Mandatory
China Pakistan Economic Corridor is attracting other nations to invest in Pakistan-China as this is one of its kind joint venture.
Of course there are tax exemptions / concessions enjoyed by CPEC projects as part of plan and agreement signed between both the countries.
The Necessity | Accounting for CPEC Projects
Despite all the tax concessions and exemptions extended by Government of Pakistan the CPEC projects still have to comply with local laws and accounting standards while recording there accounting transactions.
Since the CPEC is exempt from tax, in fact enjoying tax reductions as well on the same time they are also required to file withholding statements on monthly basis. The need of deducting taxes will arise while making payments to local companies in Pakistan.
There are reasons on why accounting for CPEC project is vital.
- Having a Competent System
- Your Financial Statements
- Understand & Control your Expenses
- Budgeting and Planning
- Manage Receivables and Avoid Bad Debts
- Management Dashboards
- Rely on Updated Financial Records
- Manage your Receivables Effectively
Accounting for CPEC projects
Introduction
The small business owners usually fail to understand their businesses financially so they lack to pay attention to financial performance and profitability of their business.
These guidelines will not only help you understand your business financially but also giving you good news on increased profits and opting for new ventures in future as well.
The Competent Accounting System
If you’re not good at keeping updated accounting records you’re most likely living in dark.
There are 2 options only, keep your accounting records yourself or hire some professional accountant or bookkeeper. Well hiring a full time accountant or bookkeeper has always been dealt with delayed decision, so in order to ease your pain read article Accountant Vs. Bookkeeper.
The most updated knowledge of your business affairs will enable you to take necessary decision at the right time.
Financial Statements while doing Accounting for CPEC projects
There are three main components of financial statements which as a small business owner are crucial for you.
- Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Account and Cash flow
Balance Sheet: Balance sheet gives you a snapshot of your assets, liabilities & equity. If your liabilities exceeds assets then your business may face problems in terms of insolvency. Balance sheet is most difficult component to understand for a beginner.
Profit & Loss Account: Profit & Loss account shows business performance of a selected period and its easier to understand. Its just difference of your Revenue and expenses and quite self explanatory in nature.
Profit and loss monitoring, reporting should be monthly so that trends and results can be compared with previous months and also with previous years.
Cash Flow: Upon reviewing Cash flow the key factor to be kept in mind is your cash revenue and cash expenses incurred from where you can easily plan your future cash inflow and outflow. Having cash flow data for past months on a sheet can help you plan and react any possible crisis before-hand.
Understand & Control your Expenses | Accounting for CPEC projects
Business expansions are great thing to do which most of times are initiated by the successful business owners.
But meanwhile expansions do have a watch on business expenses because once expenses increased its very hard to control them, because uncontrolled expenses are profit eaters.
There are two types of expenses:
Fixed Expenses
Fixed expenses are those expenses which remain unchanged over, the best example of such expenses are office rent, monthly costs of office maintenance etc. these expenses remain constant whether the sales is zero or in millions.
Variable Expenses
Variable expenses change (increase/ decrease) with turnover of the organization. For example if you’re a manufacturer your raw material will increase with increase in sales demand.
Cut short you have to keep an eye (analytically) on your expenses. For example if your expenses have increased for period you should be probing the increase. You should be aware of variations in expenses (variable expenses) to sales so that in case of huge variations preventive measures can be taken in time.
Budgeting and Planning
Budget and plan before you spend, of course monitoring is much more important than preparation of your annual, bi-annual, quarterly budgets. Making unplanned decisions can cost you business.
In order to prepare effective budget & planning, consider your profit & loss account and cash flow projections for the next planned period. Institute budget for your expenses expenditures, capital expenditures most importantly your marketing activities.
Setting your sales targets motivates your sales and marketing team, similarly your marketing activities are linked with your sales figures.
Budgeted expenses keep the company cash flow in line with its needs for capital expenditures which are huge in amounts so if the capital expenditures are synchronized with cash flow then you can easily avoid cash flow crisis.
Finally monitoring your budgets, by comparing your actual results with the budgeted will give you plan effectively for the next periods and promising profits.
With Budgeting Vs Actual, you cannot repeat your previous mistakes / shortcomings. On the other hand profits can me optimized and expenses can be minimized.
Manage Receivables and Avoid Bad Debts
Small business owners usually prefer to make all their sales on a cash basis and due to this inclination the Business Owners may lose their business or couldn’t make the very good out of it.
We are living in is a credit-driven era, where organizations have sound credit policy and draw guidelines to manage receivables.
Sometimes things go wrong when you’re selling on credit, there are good customer and bad customers.
Bad Debts are really bad! These are your sales which you have already recorded with a hope of receiving the cash in future. As every business runs on anticipated cash flow, every single dollar has already been assigned either with an expense or owner’s drawings. When a customer goes bad and does not pay at all, small business often cannot easily digest this hit.
Management Dashboards
As a small business owner you should always keep the following handy: –
- What is your sales trend?
- What are your profit stats over the period of last 6 months?
- Current business cash flows?
- Money owed to you and money you owe?
- Past trend of profit/ loss associated with projects?
Imagine yourself sitting in middle of a meeting and about to make key decisions as to the future of your organization and surrounded by the Customers/ Vendors or their business partners what would be the best thing you should be having in front of you? Of course your “Management Dashboard” to keep you informed about the facts about the financial position of your company/ organization.
There are a lot of Online Accounting Software companies which have designed Online Management Dashboards for Small Business Owners.
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