Between chasing and managing money coming in, balancing the books, and paying suppliers, keeping track of your business finances can be more time-consuming than making the actual sale.
As the world is becoming more digitised, the administration burden is slowly being removed. Integration, specifically within accounting and banking functionalities are revolutionising how business owners deal with the tedious-yet-necessary tasks.
How much time is your money costing you?
The administration of money management does not just take a toll on your time, but it also impacts your finances. According to Sage research, UK businesses are spending an average of 120 working hours a year on administrative tasks. This equates to around 5.6% of staff time being attributed to doing back-office tasks, simply because they do not have sufficient systems to deal with them.
This highlights the need to change and make an easier and more efficient way to manage business finances, namely generating invoices and processing payments received. Cloud Accounting is the solution.
Money in
With Cloud Accounting software, the administrative burden of managing your business finances is removed. You can integrate payments and bank feeds meaning your processes become streamlined and you have complete visibility of your business finances and cashflow streams.
When receiving payments, you are able to track your income transactions and reconcile them against your bank account in real time. All of this is linked together in one place, meaning you no longer need to flick back and forth between applications. Reconciliation is also automated, so you will no longer have errors and can instead trust your numbers to be 100% accurate.
Money out
Cloud Accounting allows you to have an integrated view of your finances so you can efficiently budget for suppliers, equipment, inventory, and other expenses. To help this further, you can set up schedules in advance, so you know when payments are due and in turn, keep your bills and credit in good working order.
The ability to see where you are in terms of cashflow is also a key benefit. If you are lower than expected one month, you will be able to advise credits for an extension or know to chase for late payments, making everything more efficient and keeping relationships stable.
Money management
By investing in a Cloud solution, you no longer have to check figures twice and continually review your businesses financial health. Instead, you can pinpoint exactly where your business is and know how to keep things going if ever there is an issue.
Overall, Cloud Accounting enables you to see the big picture, easily make decisions and run your business smoothly without the stress of financial administration.
Finding the right solution
When it comes to choosing the best software solution for your business, there are a few things worth considering:
- Set-up time and costs
A lot of businesses have limited time and resource to spend on training and software installation. It is therefore better to choose a software that is easy to use, set up efficiently and, where possible integrates with a number of applications you already use. By doing this, your employees are already familiar with parts of the platform.
- How often you check your numbers
You will get the most out of cloud software if you spend a lot of time tracking bank reconciliations and double-checking data for accuracy. Everyone knows that switching back and forth between platforms and double-checking manual computations for accuracy is time consuming, so finding a software that prioritises automatic reconciliation and bank feeds is essential.
- Data security
With GDPR in place, it is now more important than ever to know how secure your data is. Considerations therefore have to be made to how compliant a software is and what safeguards it has in place for accessing and storing data.
Packages such as Xero, QuickBooks Online and Sage Business Cloud are continually kept up to date with the latest legal requirements and industry-standard tools to ensure your business and its reputation is always protected. They also now incorporate 2 step authentication to ensure your data is 100% secure.
How we can help
At Dunkley’s, we are Cloud Accounting specialists. We work with clients on a regular basis to move them away from spreadsheets and manual records to an efficient, online solution. We also work with clients who are already using Cloud Accounting software to help them make the most out of their package by providing bespoke training and 1:2:1 support.
We know that every business’s needs are different, therefore we offer clients a choice when it comes to Cloud Accounting solutions. We champion, Xero, QuickBooks Online and Sage Business Cloud and always make sure the software we recommend best suits your needs.
To learn more about Cloud Accounting or to discuss how making the switch could benefit your business, please call one of our specialists today on 01454 619900 or email cloud@dunkleys.accountants.