Is your old hat bookkeeping number up?
Even if your product could change the world, or you become the best in your field, you need to make sure you can handle the simple day-by-day transactions that keep your business running.
For many business owners, the word ‘bookkeeping’ stirs up panicked visions of untidy and overflowing files of invoices, looming payment deadlines and reporting obligations that you always seem to miss.
But if you streamline your bookkeeping system, you’ll save your business precious time and money. You’ll reduce stress and anxiety and boost productivity. And you’ll have time to work on your business – not just in it.
Keep on top of your finances, and your business will be in good stead when it comes to impression management with suppliers, clients, and customers.
When your finances are organised, you’ll understand your business situation and approach dealings with external parties with confidence, boosting your company’s overall reputation.
So the longer you stick to old hat bookkeeping processes, the more stressed you become. And when you’re stressed, the more mistakes you make, and the worse things seem.
Luckily, we’re here to help. Here are five sure fire ways you can improve your bookkeeping.
1. Cloud Accounting Software
If you switch to a cloud accounting system, you can save space, time, and money. You’ll become efficient. And you’ll also improve customer service. Even better, you’ll start to go paperless – and the planet will love you for it.
Need to answer a query? Or want to join the dots between a purchase order and an invoice? To see the receipt for a purchase? Simply click on a transaction and bingo. You’ll have everything at your fingertips in seconds.
Right now, we have apps and software galore. Accessing some of the best services and applications ever designed, from a smartphone or tablet, means that businesses of any size can use the best accounting software out there.
With apps like Xero, you can connect your bank account and take your entire bookkeeping process with you. Pull up information with just a few taps – and your processes can be easier than ever before.
So say goodbye to paper systems and stop drowning under sticky notes, handwritten invoices, and paper bank statements.
Cloud-based software systems simplify the entire bookkeeping process. Your team and your accountant can update and retrieve information from your accounts in real-time, 24/7.
2. Integrate and Automate Your Record Keeping
Artificial intelligence is a few years away yet. But with a couple of simple steps you can let your computers and the cloud take care of your business automation.
By far the best Add-on apps for bookkeeping are those that take care of your bills and expense management, such as Hubdoc or Receipt Bank. We love Receipt Bank. When you integrate it with your cloud accounting platform, you’ll enjoy the following benefits, with not a shred of paper in sight:
·Eliminate manual data entry, cutting your admin duties from hours to minutes.
·Go paperless. You no longer need to hang on to every piece of paper that comes across your desk.
·Reduce errors and work from the most up-to-date and accurate set of numbers available.
You’ll grow to love it quickly. In next to no time it will become your new bookkeeping bestie. And you’ll be blown away by your streamlined accounting process.
You probably remember the shoeboxes of receipts you hoarded, ready to be entered online, or handed to your unlucky accountant.
But with Receipt Bank, receipts are a breeze. Just bought something for your business? Snap a picture with the smartphone app. Receipt Bank will grab the important details and upload them to your accounting app.
And it gets better. You can quickly email those invoices to your own bespoke Receipt Bank email address, and the software will upload the info on your behalf.
3. Get Your Payroll Sorted
Still using spreadsheets for rosters, timesheets, and payroll? There is a better way. Manual payroll is out the door now that the timesheet apps are here.
Timesheet apps can track the time spent on projects or tasks. Your staff can enter the start and end time of tasks. You can ask for a detailed breakdown of time spent on different tasks and then use this for project costing, client billing, payroll, time tracking, and job estimation.
Time tracking will tell your business what employees are working on—even where and when—while dramatically improving efficiency and speeding up those paper trail heavy tasks, like billing and payroll.
There are so many fabulous time tracking apps that you might just have trouble choosing. The most popular include Deputy, Tanda, Tsheets and Keypay. And the best thing is that they all integrate with cloud accounting apps, like Xero. There is one out there just right for your business!
4. Educate Your Team
A clean, organised accounting system isn’t the end of the streamlining process. Regardless of the beauty and efficiency of automation, there’s a human element to efficient bookkeeping.
Everyone in your office should know how to use the new software that is relevant to their role in your business. A big help here is to recruit the services of an experienced bookkeeper to keep everyone on the right track.
They have a wealth of experience from advising on the right choice of apps to suit your business, to working through diagnostic problems with these platforms. They‘ll cover all bases with your team while training them, which means your employees can use the programs with ease.
5. Be Proactive
While most business owners are incredible at what they do in their chosen industry, field or profession, they may not have the skills, time – or even interest – in regularly tracking their business performance. And before they know it, another year has gone by.
But what have they achieved? Could their situation have been improved by knowing their numbers through the year?
As a business owner, it’s vital that you also work on the business – as well as work in it. To do this, you need accurate, up to date and relevant numbers.
The importance of this has been highlighted through the recent COVID-related downturn. This caused enormous financial stress for business owners. The lesson learned during this difficult period is that to make timely decisions you need timely information.
When you streamline and automate your business, you still need to know where it’s tracking. To keep your finger on its pulse while you focus on growing your business.
That’s our take on streamlining your bookkeeping
Changing your bookkeeping and accounts processes isn’t easy - but it makes damned good business sense. Imagine how great you’ll feel when your stress and anxiety about finding the time to get your accounts sorted fly out the window. Now it’s a breeze to pay your bills, get paid and – wonder of wonders – meet your compliance deadlines.
At Vivid Enterprise Solutions, we’re passionate about helping your business thrive. Innovation is in our DNA. That means we’re proactively looking for new ways to streamline your business processes to get your work done faster and smarter. Through our unbeatable bookkeeping services, we can support you to take your business forward, adapting to any challenges that come up on the way.
Sound like something you’d like to implement in your business – but don’t have the time?
Give us a call. We’d love to help.
We’re steady. True. Dependable. Logical.
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