Best practice - Owner managed businesses, cash receipts, dividends, etc

Hi guys,

I'm looking to understand what the best practice or Clearbooks preferred methodology is for owner managed businesses who have various income streams.

At the moment I recommend my clients:

1. Setup a standing order for monthly loan repayments (where the company owes the Director money).
2. Setup a standing order for monthly salary payments, net of tax.
3. Check their profitability and run a dividend once a month as required.

Obviously, no client actually follows the advice in step 3 and this can cause a head ache. They primarily have sales in credit cards but a small portion is cash receipts. I can see the sales going through Clearbooks but often they won't deposit the cash for a few weeks, if at all. I record cash sales against a Petty cash bank account. The loan is a separate account on the balance sheet. Sometimes, again against my advice, they will just withdraw the odd £500 from the company account, which I remind them is a dividend.

Do people tend to use the separate accounts by default in Clearbooks? I.e. dividend account, expense account, etc? Or do they use the defaults and then transfer into a DLA? I assume most use a petty cash account to reconcile cash sales that are pending to go into the company bank account?

Thanks, Sean