How To Choose The Right Bookkeeping Software
Most small business owners aren’t considered experts at financial management. Since your business’ financials never stop, having to manage this yourself with ineffective tools can be frustrating and time-consuming. It’s what makes small business bookkeeping such a dread.
Finding the right bookkeeping software for your company is essential to maintaining an organized environment that limits mistakes and confusion. Below, we’re going to discuss some of the most important factors when determining the best bookkeeping software -- that way you can make a more-informed decision.
Finding the Best Bookkeeping Software
First and foremost, you need to understand what your business needs. Some businesses need something simple, while others need something complex. Some companies might be looking for something that can support both if they plan on scaling the business in the future.
Either way, you need to have a deep understanding of this before you start looking at software or consultants. It’ll help you narrow down your options initially so you can focus on the things that separate the best bookkeeping software from everything else.
In order to determine that, there are five major factors you need to consider -- customization, simplicity, accessibility, customer support, and integration. To limit any confusion with these factors, we’ll break them all down one-by-one for you.
1. Customization & Personalization
When it comes to small business bookkeeping, every business is unique and they all have their own way of operating. In order for a bookkeeping software to be of any assistance to your needs, it needs to be flexible enough to customize and personalize to your liking.
Whether you have hourly employees or contractors working for you, need assistance managing income and expenses, or need general help when it comes to taxes, your bookkeeping software should have a solution for you.
2. Ease of Use is Crucial
No small business owner wants to invest company funds into a bookkeeping software that provides more confusion and frustration than it does assistance. In fact, it would defeat the purpose of investing in bookkeeping software to begin with.
Your new software shouldn’t have a steep learning curve for any business owner or accounting team. It should streamline the process and save you loads of time in the process. If you’re receiving anything less than that from your bookkeeping solution, it’s time for new software
3. Accessibility At All Times
Much like you want the software to be simple, you also want it to be accessible. This means having the ability to view your books and financial insight whenever or wherever you need to -- especially since most small business owners are constantly on-the-go.
It doesn’t matter what device you’ve grown to love over the years, your new bookkeeping software should be supported on it. Phones, tablets, laptops, PCs, you name it!
4. Excellent Customer Support
Any product, service, or software needs excellent customer support. Nothing is perfect and you’re sure to run into an issue, question, or comment at some point. Since bookkeeping is a stressful process in general, having courteous and helpful customer service agents by your side is a must.
That also means having easy access to these agents, whether it be live chat, phone call, email, by mail, in-person, or through social media. The more options, the better!
5. Integration At It’s Finest
Over the years, every small business owner has become attached to certain software, apps, tools, and resources when running their business. Having a bookkeeping software that easily integrates with your existing operations is essential to finding one that works for you.
When you have all your technology working together, it makes everything that much easier for you and your team. Since putting yourselves in a position to succeed is crucial to achieving success, you’ll be in a good spot moving forward.
Now that you know what to look for, put that knowledge to good use and find a bookkeeping software that works well with your business. Contact Consultants In-A-Box today to learn more about our solutions and how we can help you take control of your business’ financials.
Money-Saving Accounting Tasks That You Don’t Need to Outsource
Most small business owners fear the term ‘accounting’ and run from anything considered ‘bookkeeping.’ While outsourcing your accounting needs is beneficial to your company, it also costs money. The key here is limiting the amount of work you need to outsource with the right accounting tips.
How do you do that, exactly?
You take some of the easier responsibilities for yourself and leave the more difficult accounting tasks for the professionals. Don’t worry, the accounting tasks you take on won’t take any special skills and won’t be time-consuming.
They will, however, be money-saving and that’s what’s most important.
Today, we’re going to discuss five of the simplest and easiest-to-manage accounting tasks small business owners should learn to take care of themselves. With the right software and accounting tips, these tasks will be as easy as checking your social media.
1. Invoicing
Microsoft Excel is an amazing tool that can provide a wide range of benefits to any business -- including managing and recording invoices. Unfortunately, using Excel puts you at risk of constant data entry errors, wrong dates, incorrect amounts, and more.
Of course, this all leads to a delay in receiving payment from the client or customer, which is what no small business owner wants.
Avoiding this requires the right accounting software and accounting tips to help you not only automate your invoicing, but allow you to easily and quickly preview an invoice before being sent. This makes it much for manageable for any busy small business owner.
In addition to that, accounting software can help you change currency for each client, accept deposits up-front for work you just signed a contract for, receive notifications about overdue invoices, allowing the ability to duplicate past invoices for easy editing, and much more.
2. Accepting & Recording Payments
Getting the invoice to the client is essential, but making sure they have the resources to quickly and easily pay that invoice is just as important. It’ll put a smile on your face when you see clients and customers paying you in a timely manner.
The right accounting software helps you not only keep track of who paid you, but also how they paid, whether the payment was cleared, when it was sent, when it was paid, and just about anything else you’ll need to track when it comes to accepting and recording payments.
The right software also saves you time by giving you an all-in-one solution when depositing checks, handling payments that bounce, and even helping you with foreign currency exchange when dealing with customers overseas.
In terms of accepting payments, you can integrate an easy option built into the invoice. That way the client can pay that invoice the moment they receive it with little work on their end. You can set it up so the money is deposited directly into your business bank account.
In terms of recording everything, a majority of data is recorded automatically to make it easier on the business owner. It’ll keep everything under the same roof so you can easily manage future, current, past, and overdue invoices.
3. Expenses
When it comes to accounting tasks, managing income isn’t so bad when watching your business grow and receive payments. Unfortunately, things aren’t as fun when managing the money your business is losing -- but they’re just as crucial to the process.
When using a spreadsheet, tracking expenses is difficult and leaves your business prone to mistakes. With the right software and small business accounting tips, you can connect your business bank account directly to the software. That way all your expenses are automatically uploaded to the software every single day.
It’ll make keeping track of expenses a lot easier because you’ll only have to add in the cash expenses, which don’t happen as often in business. Simply snap a picture of the receipt, add in what it was for and how much, and save the entry. You can always label them to further organize, as well.
Accounting software can also help you manage tax deductibles, including meals, business travel, vehicle-related costs, home office expenses, and technology costs.
4. Sales Tax
Collecting sales tax helps cover tax costs for any small business owner, but most neglect the process of recording and keeping track of the sales tax collected over the past year. This leads to the sales tax being added into your income and used with your spending money.
Of course, a nightmare is bound to happen when you don’t have the funds to cover tax payments. To avoid this from happening, it’s important to manage sales tax collections and keep them separate from everything else you’re receiving.
You’ll always have access to your data and can easily manage how much you’ll owe in sales tax whenever you need to.
5. Financial Knowledge
When running a business, it’s essential you understand where your business stands financially at all times. You need to know how much cash flow you have, how much money is coming in, how much is leaving, and knowing what the future has in store for you.
Most business owners wait to take care of all these things at month’s end, but that leaves you prone to rushing and making mistakes. Having a software that keeps everything right in front of you throughout the month allows you to stay on top of where your business stands whenever and wherever.
Financial reports should be easy to run and easy to read, they shouldn’t add more frustration to your situation. When choosing a software that’s right for your company, take this into consideration to avoid making the wrong investment.
Once you start to turn these small business accounting tips into habits, you put your business in a much better position moving forward. You’ll have the confidence you need to grow your company and inspire your employees to do better every day.
