accounting processes workflows

Accounting workflows from invoicing to reporting

Accounting touches every part of a business, and getting it wrong is expensive. Without a structured accounts receivable process, you risk losing revenue. Without a clear accounts payable workflow, you face late payment charges or exposure to fraud.

Process Street workflows give you a repeatable, enforceable system for every core accounting function, from onboarding new finance staff to producing your annual financial report. Each workflow below walks you through the steps, explains the reasoning, and connects to automation so nothing falls through the cracks.

This guide covers 11 ready-to-use accounting workflows. Whether you need to reconcile your bank statements, prepare tax documentation, or standardize how your team handles expenses, there is a workflow here for you. Jump to any section using the quick links below, or scroll through for a brief introduction to each one.

You can integrate Process Street with your existing tools to automate accounting workflows, from triggering a new invoice workflow when a project closes to assigning month-end reconciliation tasks automatically.

Quick links

Accounting Onboarding Procedures

accounting onboarding procedures workflow

Onboarding new employees in any area requires a clear process focused on fitting the new hire into the company’s culture and operations.

Running effective staff onboarding results in higher productivity, stronger team morale, and enviable employee retention rates.

In this workflow, we focus on the administrative tasks required to bring someone new into your company, and then guide you through bedding a team member into the group.

There are also tasks to review your employee’s knowledge on the specific areas they will be working on, with time set aside for learning. Plus, importance is granted to getting your new hire working well with all the internal systems which keep your company ticking over.

Click here to get the accounting onboarding procedures workflow

Creating an Invoice

creating an invoice workflow

Invoicing clients is the lifeblood of your business.

Without receiving remuneration for your services, you are running a charity rather than a business. Which, while admirable, will not put food on the table for you and all your staff.

To help you bring in your money when you need it, we have created this streamlined invoice workflow.

Connect the Process Street workflow to your accounting tools to automatically generate invoices when projects complete.

This workflow provides a repeatable method of creating invoices while saving time in the process.

Click here to get the creating an invoice workflow

Bank Reconciliation Template

bank reconciliation template workflow

A large part of accounting is simply double checking your own work or the work of other people to find and correct mistakes. This is why so many accounting procedures seem complicated; you are being asked to do the same calculations in many different ways.

This can be confusing, but we have tried our best to show you how simple these processes can actually be.

In this workflow, you will start at the point of preparing your takings for the bank, and then you will be checking your own math, and that of the bank, to make sure it is all correct.

Mistakes are easy to make and if left unnoticed can be very hard to correct, with huge consequences. This workflow is your first defense against errors.

Click here to get the bank reconciliation template

Expense Management Process

expense management process workflow

Dealing with employee expenses can be a messy process.

Often there is not clarity as to what is being claimed for and why. Or it is not certain who is meant to approve the claim or whether that approval has been given or not. Then, there are the occasions where an approved and processed expense does not end up being paid to the employee when it is meant to be paid.

These are all scenarios to be avoided. It starts with a good process.

This workflow brings all of the different employees involved into the conversation. They each fulfil their respective tasks and the expense is dealt with smoothly and quickly, with each action documented for later audit.

Click here to get the expense management process workflow

Accounts Receivable Process

accounts receivable process workflow

When you do work, you expect to be paid for it.

This workflow not only brings in industry tips on how to best ensure you receive the payment you are due, but it allows you to keep your business going while waiting on those payments.

Accounting for accounts receivable is the art of accounting for money you do not have. This is money which you will have, and this process helps you operate as if it is there in your bank.

Maintaining this cash flow is something businesses typically struggle with, and is normally the result of having product or service expertise in the organization without the internal accounting know-how.

Click here to get the accounts receivable process workflow

Accounts Payable Process

accounts payable process workflow

There are many purposes inbuilt within an effective accounts payable process.

The first, and most obvious, is to make certain you are paying for the things you should be paying for.

Part of this is to not miss payments. Missing payments could incur charges or interest, or the damaging of valuable business relationships. Another part of this is to check you are receiving what you are paying for. You do not want to be overpaying for something. This seems simple enough, but as organizations grow and become more complex it can be easy to miss certain details.

Processes like these stop details being missed.

A further function of a well-constructed accounts payable process is to minimize the risk of fraud. As companies grow larger and the outgoing payments they make begin to spiral upward in value, the risk of fraud increases. Every company should have oversight procedures in place to protect company assets. This workflow acts as one of those.

Click here to get the accounts payable process workflow

Income (Profit and Loss) Statement Process

income profit and loss statement workflow

There are three main pillars of business accounting reports and one of them is your income statement, otherwise known as a profit and loss statement.

The purpose of this document is quite simple. It is there to report the total amounts of money a company has earned and spent over a specified period of time.

This helps you work out your gross profit, your profit before taxes, your retained earnings, and other important terms any good accounting overview of your business will need to represent.

Click here to get the income (profit and loss) statement workflow

Cash Flow Report

cash flow report workflow

Working out your cash flow is another staple aspect of business accounting.

The cash flow report, or cash flow statement, is focused on looking less at broad overviews of the business and trends, and more at activity within business operations.

This requires investigating the cash payments, cash receipts, and cash net change across the operating, financing, and investing activities of a business over a particular timeframe.

This workflow guides you through what documentation you will need to consult, how to structure and record your report, and how to work out the important final figures.

Click here to get the cash flow report workflow

Balance Sheet Statement Preparation

balance sheet statement preparation workflow

The balance sheet, sometimes known as the statement of financial position, summarizes a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity.

This is one of your key reports for itemizing what the company owes and owns.

If you have some upcoming meetings with investors, your balance sheet will serve as a quick way to demonstrate the assets of the business while also showing how much had been invested by other shareholders.

It is a crucial document. Fortunately, this workflow guides you through the process and explains what you need to do to create your balance sheet. Plus, we try to make sure you understand it along the way, with an explanation of key terms and concepts.

Click here to get the balance sheet statement preparation workflow

Business Tax Preparation

business tax preparation workflow

Tax is tricky.

If you are starting off in business, you might not know how much tax you have to pay or what you are paying that tax for.

How do you account for expenses? How much information do I need to provide?

This workflow points you to all the different factors you need to take into consideration when compiling your business tax return. It is geared toward US companies but has a broad enough scope to assist businesses internationally. It is geared to work for companies with both partnership and corporation structures.

Click here to get the business tax preparation workflow

Annual Financial Report Template

annual financial report template workflow

The annual financial report is the culmination of all the hard work put in over the course of the year.

This is the cup final of the accountancy season.

Annual reports include an overview of business activity during the year, including cash flow reports, income statements, and balance sheets.

However, the report is much more than mere numbers. It is where future projections, built from the accountancy team’s hard work, can be included. There is also the option of including a letter from the CEO and other details about changing markets, products, and services.

The annual financial report is your detailed proof that you and your team did a great job and a way of communicating the company’s strategy for the year ahead.

Click here to get the annual financial report template

Automate your accounting workflows

All of these accounting workflows are designed to run with automation built in. Process Street connects with the tools your finance team already uses, including QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks, so data flows between systems without manual re-entry.

Here are a few examples of what you can automate:

  1. Trigger an accounts receivable workflow automatically upon delivery of goods or services
  2. Route expense claims through approval workflows with built-in escalation rules
  3. Assign month-end close tasks to the right team members on a recurring schedule
  4. Send tax documentation to your advisor automatically once all preparation steps are complete
  5. Generate compliance-ready audit trails for every completed accounting workflow

If you are looking for more ways to bring automation into your finance operations, explore our guide to finance automation software for a deeper look at the tools and strategies that complement these workflows.

Process Street is a Compliance Operations Platform that turns your accounting procedures into automated, enforceable workflows. Every step is tracked, every approval is documented, and every completed workflow becomes proof that the right process was followed.

Explore more workflow packs

If your accounting department is already running smoothly, check out these other workflow packs for your team:

The post 11 Checklists to Optimize Your Accounting Processes first appeared on Process Street | Compliance Operations Platform.