Your dry cleaner's books

Accounting shows the whole business: the sales you collected, everything that leaves the register and the profit that's left. You don't need to know bookkeeping: fill in two or three boxes and the software does the math.

Profit

The first screen subtracts expenses from the period's sales. Below it you see where the money went, grouped (premises, utilities, people, equipment, delivery, selling, office) and broken down by category.

• Margin: what's left of every dollar that comes in. In this trade, 20% to 35% is normal.
• Wages against sales: 10% to 20% is normal.
• Power, water and gas against sales: 15% to 25% is normal. Higher than that, check the boiler and your machine hours.

Expenses

1. 1Tap Accounting, then Expenses.
2. 2Tap Record expense.
3. 3Pick the date, the category (rent, power, wages, maintenance…) and type the amount.
4. 4Say how it was paid and, if you want, which supplier or employee it went to.
5. 5Save. It shows up in the profit right away.

Receivables

If you invoice hotels, restaurants or clinics, Receivables tells you who owes you, how much and since when, split into 0–10, 11–30, 31–60 and over 60 days. Anything past 60 days is the first call you should make.

Sales tax

Sales tax separates taxable from exempt sales and tells you how much tax you collected in the period: exactly what your accountant needs to file. The software doesn't file for you.

The file for your accountant

The File for your accountant button downloads a single file with the period's ledger: each day's sales, every expense, every purchase and the tax. It opens in Excel and loads into any accounting program.