The Covid Revolution
Since 21st March 2020 it feels as though we have been launched into the future with close contact at work a happy thing of the past and having now recovered from the shock, industries having to rethink the way that they work and develop at an unprecedented speed if they are to survive.
Cloud Accounting
Cloud accounting for small businesses has been around for the last decade with machine reading and machine learning being the latest and most important development since the bank feed, for accounting software companies to now accelerate as quickly as possible as the main providers compete against each other on capability and price.
If you are a business owner still trying to control your business with spreadsheets, it really is time for an overhaul. Book yourself onto a free cloud computing trial with Xero, Quickbooks, Freeagent or any provider of your choice and embrace the challenge of new learning.
The difficulty for many business owners is that although the steps are simple, the understanding of double entry bookkeeping is not there and that is still the foundation of generally accepted accounting.
The Bank Feed
The bank transactions are literally fed down into the software.
Completed carefully, the bank feed eliminates the need for data input or the bank reconciliation where accountants used to take a client cashbook, spend hours matching the entries to the bank statements and type up the long lists of errors and omissions.
Machine Reading
Being able to email or text a photograph of your supplier invoices or petrol receipts for example to the accounting software eliminates data input errors and saves time. The software will read the figures on the electronic documents and accurately complete the vat and total fields in the invoice or receipt transaction.
Machine Learning
The better products will also learn your categorization of your bank payments and receipts, speeding up the bank reconciliation process even more.
Dedicated Automatic Entry Products
To get an even better result, use the bookkeeping software along with an intermediary app such as Receipt Bank or Autoentry.
The Paperless Office
Your receipt or invoice will now exist in your chosen accounting software package as a transaction and the document will be electronically attached to the transaction for you to open and view any time you need to.
This blog may pose many more questions and clarification from enquiring business owners. As well as seeking information from the software providers and trialling their products, I would always recommend involving your accountant in any software transition.