Guides

A recurring admin task checklist for small businesses

The weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly admin jobs most small businesses need, and how to make sure they actually get done.

Why recurring admin slips

Routine jobs are easy to postpone because nothing breaks immediately. Then someone is on holiday, the job is forgotten, and the problem appears weeks later as a missed payment, a failed backup or an unhappy customer.

Weekly

• Reconcile bank accounts and record receipts.
• Chase unpaid invoices.
• Check that backups ran.
• Review the coming week's deadlines.

Monthly

• Close the books and review cash flow.
• Run payroll and approve expenses.
• Test restoring a file from backup.
• Review software subscriptions and cancel unused ones.

Quarterly

• Sales tax, VAT or GST returns where they apply.
• Review user access to systems and remove leavers.
• Check the renewal list for new or changed items.

Yearly

• Annual accounts and company filings.
• Insurance review before renewal.
• Update policies such as health and safety or data protection.
• Staff training and certificate renewals.

Make them stick

Give each job one owner and a due date, and make the next occurrence appear automatically when the current one is done. A short daily or weekly summary of what is due keeps the routine visible without extra meetings.