What is pre-accounting? A guide for beginners

If you’ve just incorporated, you’ll hear the term “pre-accounting” often. It’s frequently confused with what your CPA does. Here’s a practical primer for new founders.

What is pre-accounting?

Pre-accounting is the process of recording the day-to-day financial movements of a business — sales, purchases, collections, payments, stock — internally. These records are then handed off to your CPA, who maintains the legal books.

It’s an internal process, not official accounting.

The core areas

1. Customer/supplier ledgers (cari hesap)

Track receivables and payables per party. “X Co. owes me TRY 24,500, I owe Y Co. TRY 8,200.”

2. Invoice management

Tidy archive of invoices issued and received, plus e-invoice integration.

3. Collection & payment tracking

Bank, cash, POS movements logged daily; due dates monitored.

4. Inventory

If you sell physical goods: incoming/outgoing, on-hand, minimum stock alerts.

5. P&L reporting

Monthly and yearly profit/loss reports. Customer- and product-level profitability analysis.

Do you need software?

Yes. Excel works for the first month or two, then breaks down:

• Manual invoice entries → error-prone.
• Customer ledgers tangle → collections go untracked.
• Tax-period handoffs to CPA become a nightmare.

Pre-accounting software scales this 10×.

ŞirketOn’s pre-accounting module

• e-Fatura, e-Arşiv, e-SMM integration (private integrator)
• Bank and POS integration (automatic collection import)
• Ledgers, inventory, cash modules
• Automatic data sharing with your CPA
• Mobile app for invoicing in the field
• Monthly P&L, cash-flow, collections reports

Can pre-accounting replace my CPA?

No. Legal bookkeeping, filings, VAT and income/corporate tax calculations require a licensed CPA. Pre-accounting makes their work easier; it doesn’t replace it.

Tip: Tidy pre-accounting typically cuts CPA fees by 30–40%. CPAs bill by the hour — the cleaner your data, the fewer hours they need.