Step 4 - The Accounting System 6 Box Model

Orientation > Step 4 - The Accounting System & the 6 Box Model

In order to design an optimal Accounting System for your needs, you need to understand the Small Business Accounting System landscape in a simpler way. The focus on Small Business works for all because everyone, including those on w2's and those yet to work at all, can be modeled as a Small Business Person in their own commercial play.

We use Two Visual Models and one Business Process Map to provide a basic cognitive structure for Accounting Systems. The Three Slice Pie Model morphs into the Six Box Model just below, and that leads to a Business Process map for an example of a real world application. With these tools, you'll be on your way in a matter of minutes!

Small Business Accounting System - 3 Slice Pie Model

There are three possible flows through a Small Business Accounting system.

Flow #1 doesn't appear to touch accounting sub systems. That's a cash business, like small time drug dealing, for example.
Flow #2 includes partial contact with accounting systems. This results in partially auditable accounting records, but it would be impossible to paint a full financial picture from those records.
Flow #3 is always in contact with accounting sub systems in some way. This type of system is generally reconcilable in some form at all times.

The 6 Box Model gives greater resolution into Systems, Processes, and Software Modules.

1) Managerial Accounting, also referred to as Cost Accounting, is for yourself. Do it any way you'd like, but always remember that poop in is poop out.
2) Tax Accounting, also referred to as Financial Accounting, is done for others and it needs to be done using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
3) Bookkeeping and Accounting is only addition and subtraction with a little multiplication or division mixed in. It's not difficult. If you have an underlying belief that it is, now would be a great time to let that go.

From the 6 Box Model Above
to a Real World "Business Process Map" Below...

This flow chart was first presented on the home page. You will see it more later too. Can you see the parallel between the 6 box Model above and the Real World Process Map below?

Your Needs...

Everyone is unique, but few have truly unique accounting needs. This text below is similar to what we presented on the home page. We're deeper into the learning process now. With the text below, we're trying to teach you a little more about what conversational flow around these topics sounds like...

Box #1 -- Sales System

Everyone needs a Sales System, be that a piece of paper and pencil, a carbon copy receipt book, a snazzy cloud based Point of Sale System, or something in between. Some will need an Invoicing System for a Sales System. It will be a Booking System for others. Some need full automation, others will stop comfortably with a partial digital system. A few will stick with paper and pencil because they can or because of advantages gleaned from simplicity. For individuals working on w2s, your sales are your wages, so you will track those via your pay stub.

Box #2 -- Advanced Accounting Systems/Modules

Not everyone will need these. Some will be built into Sales Systems, others will be separate.

Box #3, #4 -- Payment Inflows and Outflows

Everyone needs a proper plan for managing the movement of money into and out of their accounts to maximize all available opportunities while minimizing penalties and stress for mistakes. This plan may or may not include a lot of technology and documentation.

Box #5 -- Bookkeeping System

Everyone needs a Bookkeeping System, be it a shoe box, paper and pencil, a simple spread sheet, a cloud based single entry accounting solution or a double entry bookkeeping software solution of some sort. A double entry bookkeeping system is suggested for most, but until now, the only cloud based double entry system known to most is that Beast called Quickbooks, which is an absolute nightmare in its current and prior form. Our newly developed, free, Google Sheets based Double Entry Bookkeeping template is the White Unicorn many have been patiently waiting for for decades.

A 220 Club Initiative

This website and these offerings are just one of many resources brought to you as part of a 220 Club initiative.

The image to the right shows ZAP Accounting Modules collectively as just a single box in part of a larger flow chart that represents an ERP System for an Acupuncture Office. (ERP - "Enterprise Resource Planning). And as it turns out, that ERP System is just the bottom right hand corner of an even larger flow chart below!

We have the ability to assist with much more than your Accounting needs. That's just a great place to start!

There's a lot more lifting these balloons than most can
consume in a year or two of nibbles!

It's Time to Bend Time!

This website is your portal for Small Business and Personal Accounting Education and Google Sheets based Accounting Software Templates designed with you in mind. No strings attached.

Our Education and 'Software' offerings save you time and money while reducing confusion, headache and stress related to bookkeeping, accounting and financial management as well as cloud technology.

All of our education is free, and all of our Google Sheets Bookkeeping templates are free with no ties back to us at all, making this a very new type of 'software' proposition indeed. These are all stand alone google sheet templates, so in that sense they aren't software at all, but what they do is well beyond software worthy.

This website and these tools are designed to clarify and simplify things in a way that reduces your confusion, stress and costs while increasing your efficiency and confidence in your own financial understanding while boosting your technical prowess.

ZAP Accounting Software was designed to increase your accounting prowess and enable you create a functional Small Business Accounting System that works for you.

An initiation omitted is now rectified for many to see.

For those who like to read, the books are a good resource. They fill in a tremendous amount of blanks while undoing cognitive knots that were well woven into our educational and commercial matrix.

Select the Google Sheet templates closest to your needs.

Play with them. Learn to appreciate function over form first. Learn to like them and the transparency they provide. Tweak them as needed. Build a solution which works for you with the lowest introductory and long term cost. Look for functional resonance before beauty. Seek solutions that align with Best Practices and fundamental processes first, not as an after thought. Then make a donation based on your derived benefits.

If after learning this way you want sexier, flashier software, go shopping for it. Your new found education and your needs will be well defined via our Templates. With this as a head start, you will have confidence in what you are looking for, and you will be comfortable knowing you will always have a great, functional fallback position should you ever leave it or need it.

With the function over form first approach, you have an Accounting and Technology base camp much further up the mountain from your current base camp. With this approach, you know what you really need before you go shopping for a prettier solution that may not exist. With this approach, you remain free from sexy but shallow software traps while approaching the summit of your desires.

Welcome to a Land of Plenty.

Thanks for finishing Steps 1-4 of the Orientation Process.

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for our Global Computing Community.

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