Accounting software has come a long way in recent years. You can now download your bank and credit card statements electronically, teach the software a few rules and it will look to those rules and your transaction history to work out where each transaction goes in your accounts. Leaving you with just a list of the transactions that it could not match up. You can easily fix this with a couple of clicks and your data entry for the period is done and dusted, minimising your bookkeeping costs.
These packages also come with Apps for your phone so that you can issue invoices on site and take credit card payments. This is a boom to cash flow. You can also use your phone to take a photo of an invoice you receive when you purchase goods. Then enter the date, amount and type of expense and the image will be transferred into your accounting software and matched up with the data downloaded from the bank. No risk of losing receipts, them fading or having to sort through a shoe box to find the right one.
On line versions mean that your Accountant can access your data any time that you need them to and prepare your BAS without interfering with your use of the software. Take the time to get to know your selected package and you will be able to manage your business to the best of your ability and in the most time efficient manner possible.
On the other hand you may never want to turn on a computer and just want your Accountant to look after it all, with you just writing out paper invoices to your customers. We can of course do that in a very efficient way now. Or you can have the best of both worlds where we set up your phone to do some of the stuff you need but we handle the back office.
Talk to us it is not just a one size fits all you need an Accountant with objective experience to work out the best approach and software package for you. Some packages are very cheap even free but we have found that they are a false economy because they can’t produce the reports your Accountant needs to prepare your BAS, tax return and financial statements economically.
We can’t encourage you enough to subscribe to one of these new age packages, in particular the bank feed and data matching facilities. They are the solution to the ever increasing paper burden on small business. But please consult with your Accountant before you commit, different packages will suite different businesses. For example Xero have made their source code available to other software manufactures so there is a huge array of add ons available for the Xero accounting software. If you are a builder there is an add on that will allow you to scan plans and break down the costs for a quote and that quote can eventually be invoiced through Xero. But Xero is at the more expensive end of accounting packages not to mention the cost of the add ons so it is important to first find out if you can utilise any of Xero’s advanced features.
On the other end of the scale we would not like to see you purchase a package that did not at least provide you with the bank feed facility, allow you to have at least one employee, an online facility for your Accountant to access, the ability to photograph expense invoices and match them to their bank statement entry. These are important features that will save you time and money. If you meet with your clients away from your office then the ability to receive payments by credit card on your phone is also going to be a boom for cash flow.
Further savings in accounting fees can be made if your Accountant can transfer the data into your tax return with a minimum amount of effort so once again, check with your Accountant before you sign up.
There are just so many software packages out there, Saasu, Wave Accounting, Invoices To Go, Shoe Box, Cash Flow Manager, Banklink, MOYB, Sage one , Reckon, Quickbooks and Xero to name few. It would be a difficult task for you to compare each of these to your needs. Further, the comparison tables available get so technical you can get bogged down with irrelevant features or ones you don’t understand. Talk to your Accountant.
Below is a table of software packages that meet a minimum we consider necessary for any small business, contractor or tradie who at least intend to be partly involved in their record keeping process. This list will help you discuss with your Accountant the right package for you.