Businesses are always looking to maximize efficiency and manage operations with smaller teams. Lockdowns come and go, which means that businesses are also searching for means to remain efficient in a remote working environment.
Overall, businesses desperately need to be more profitable, but they must do so with minimal investment given the uncertainty that clouds economies the world over, not to mention declining profits over nearly 18 months of chaos.
Bookkeeping software can bridge the need gap in all of these areas. Here are 5 reasons why businesses are increasingly upgrading to such software.
- Reduces data-entry-related stress
Most people complain that the pandemic has thrown work-life balance out of the window. In addition, citizens are generally not in the best of spirits because of being locked up at home.
As a result, businesses are doing a lot to keep their people happy: reducing a portion of their workload is probably the quickest and most assured way of putting a smile on their faces and motivating them.
Bookkeeping software can take hours off an employee’s week (or day, if their core job is accounting or bookkeeping). Employees can file expenses and track sales in a few minutes instead of a few hours, using the receipt scanning feature of bookkeeping software like Dext.
Receipt scanning software uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to extract data from a photo of a receipt or a sales invoice or even a bank statement or online source. The data is presented in the copyable, editable text that can be put into Word or Excel or an email.
- Offers proactive insights on making business more profitable
Bookkeeping software is smart tech which means that it is capable of processing app the data that is sieved through it, to turn out intelligent and usable insights.
- It can tell you where supply chain spending is extremely high.
- It can also draw your attention to areas where spending is increasing (or reducing).
- It can alert your bookkeeper to upcoming tax laws and offer an idea of how it will affect your profitability.
- Some businesses can also use the project tracking features of bookkeeping software to measure the work being delivered to clients – this enables healthy and professional negotiation
- Eliminates errors
Bookkeeping software eliminates errors in several ways:
- First, your accountants and bookkeepers can focus on checking data rather than entering it not just because of the receipt scanning software we talked about earlier, but also because once you link the two, information directly from your business bank account to your books.
- Second, the system flags up discrepancies, errors, and anomalies.
- Third, bookkeeping software lets you track deleted entries.
- Four, the entries made by any employee can be checked by the bookkeeper or a supervisor against the image of the original receipt or invoice used by the receipt scanning software.
- The fact that invoices can be generated automatically by the system also ensures that they are error-free, not to mention consistent and therefore more professional.
- Bookkeeping software like Dext Precision also allows you or your bookkeeper to constantly evaluate the state of your books and historical data.
- Conducive to remote working
Bookkeeping software makes remote working a whole lot easier because it allows for live, anytime-anywhere access to the company’s finances. Whether the company boss needs to look at cash reserves before making a big decision, or an investor needs to evaluate how the company is performing, you can supply up-to-date financial data anytime and anywhere.
The anytime-anywhere bit is made possible because data is saved to the cloud and accessible via smartphone. Meanwhile, live access is possible because the information is directly from your business bank accounts to your books.
Additionally, you can collaborate on specific entries or specific line data using the in-app chat. Simply call whoever’s attention to a given entry and get responses right away.
The fact that one uses their phone for scanning is also a minor but extremely useful feature given that people don’t typically have scanners at home.
- Helps manage third-party online sales information directly from your business bank account to your books.
This is the era of the startup and the small business. Things have never been better for startups and small businesses and if you fall in this category, this is your moment to shine and thrive. E-commerce heavyweights like Amazon have made it possible for you to distribute your product to buyers anywhere in the world.
However, keeping track of sales and refunds can prove to be a pretty herculean task for a small setup. Bookkeeping software can automate this too! It can pull sales data, line by line from online marketplaces like Amazon and Shopify, and also from payment providers like PayPal.
In all likelihood, most of these goals are relevant to your business as well. You don’t even have to invest upfront. Opt for a free trial or a free demo to see how bookkeeping software can change the way you do business.
