Every month, your bookkeeper should deliver a core set of reports that give you a clear picture of where your business stands financially. There are six things you should expect at minimum, and a few more depending on the nature of your business.

The first three are your primary financial statements. Your Profit & Loss statement (also called an income statement) shows your revenue, expenses, and net income for the month. It answers the most basic question: did you make money or lose money? Your Balance Sheet shows what you own, what you owe, and the equity left over at a specific point in time. And your Cash Flow Statement tracks where cash actually moved during the month. This one matters more than people realize because your P&L can show a profit while your bank account shrinks. Revenue on paper and cash in the bank are two different things.

Beyond those three, you should also receive Accounts Receivable Aging and Accounts Payable Aging reports. The A/R Aging shows who owes you money and how long those invoices have been sitting unpaid. The A/P Aging shows what you owe your vendors and when those bills come due. Together, these two reports help you manage cash flow and avoid surprises. If a big chunk of your receivables are 60 or 90 days past due, you need to know that before it becomes a cash crunch.

The sixth deliverable is bank reconciliation confirmation. This verifies that your books actually match your bank and credit card balances. Without reconciliation, nothing else on the reports is trustworthy. Full-service bookkeeping should always include monthly reconciliation as a standard part of the process, not something you have to ask for separately.

Some businesses need additional reports on top of the basics. If you set an annual budget, a budget vs. actual comparison each month shows whether you’re on track or drifting off course. Wholesalers and retailers often benefit from gross margin reports broken down by product line or service so they can see which items actually generate profit and which ones just generate revenue. Businesses with more complex operations sometimes use custom KPI dashboards that track metrics specific to their industry.

All of these reports should be in your hands by the 15th of the following month at the latest. If it’s March 20th and you still don’t have your February numbers, that’s a problem. Decisions based on stale financial data are risky. You need current numbers while you still have time to make adjustments.

If you’re not receiving these reports consistently, or if you receive them but they don’t make sense to you, that’s worth addressing. Good bookkeepers in Buena Park don’t just hand you a stack of reports. They make sure you understand what the numbers mean and what needs your attention. The reports themselves are just paper. The value is in what they tell you about your business.