For those business owners that are not accountants, we understand that you did not start up a business to become an accountant. In fact, the thought of managing finance often brings out the cold sweats and butterflies in your stomach. Don’t worry, you can deal with it another day, just jot it down on a piece of paper!!
Writing something down on a piece of paper or in a book is one way of keeping records. However, the information that you have just stored is now only visible in that book or on that piece of paper. What if you need to use that information for something else? The monthly sales summary? Listing the companies or individuals who owe you money at the end of the month? VAT? That piece of paper with the key information is massively important to you and your business, but the information does not lend itself to other processes by being written down in this way. So if the information is needed to help you better understand your business and run the back office processes, why not get that information into a system that uses that key piece of data for lots of other processes.
Using a cloud based accounting system allows business owners to record information from anywhere at anytime. Mobile apps allow you to send invoices on the go. And let’s be honest, sending invoices is the most important financial function for you as a business owner, especially if you are on the move all the time doing jobs for lots of customers. But when you send that invoice to your client, the following things will automatically be updated if you use accounting software. VAT (if applicable) will be recorded and posted into the balance sheet and consolidated with other sales and purchase data ready for the next VAT return. Your debtors, the people who owe you money, will be updated if the client did not pay at the time of invoicing. This will allow you to monitor the cashflow and your client credit limits, and be notified as soon as the payment date has passed. Essentially, you can forget about monitoring the payment until you receive the notification. And you will also be able to review the company performance for that day/week/month/quarter/year at that point in time and compare it to the same time period for the day/week/month/quarter/year before. All of this for sending out one invoice - which you would have had to do anyway.
Using intuitive cloud based accounting systems like Kashflow allows business owners to be more productive in the front office by being more efficient in the back office. Business value is not achieved by working on your books late into the evening or on weekends. That may be one way of getting things done, but I like to think that people have better things to do than paperwork.
I understand that if you as a business owner have been doing things a certain way for years, finding the motivation to change is difficult. You may have looked at accounting systems years ago and didn’t like the terminology or accounting jargon in the software. I know, I didn’t like it either. Software development has changed. Gone are the days where substance over form ruled. The premise back then was to build software to get jobs done. The developers rarely gave two hoots about the end user experience just as long as it worked. Today, the tables have turned and software adoption through great, easy to navigate, easy to understand user interfaces have taken over. All of a sudden colours do matter, the ability to customise functionality matters, and brand matters, with all of this being easy to do within the software by the end user themselves. And this is what has been achieved. Not only that, the functionality is designed for the business owner and not the accountant. It’s for you!!
If you are feeling sceptical about the simplicity of a cloud based solution, why don’t you try it for free for 14 days by clicking here.
The role of today’s accountant is to support their clients in growing and developing their business in line with improving processes which may be linked to the finance functions in the business, along with the traditional compliance requirements. Promoting technology and helping clients engage and adopt with this technology is now part of that role.
If you need any assistance, please feel free to get in touch with me or contact a member of the Zoosme Accountants team to walk you through any of the processes. Once you have engaged with us, you'll have to find another use for the stationery cupboard.
Writing something down on a piece of paper or in a book is one way of keeping records. However, the information that you have just stored is now only visible in that book or on that piece of paper. What if you need to use that information for something else? The monthly sales summary? Listing the companies or individuals who owe you money at the end of the month? VAT? That piece of paper with the key information is massively important to you and your business, but the information does not lend itself to other processes by being written down in this way. So if the information is needed to help you better understand your business and run the back office processes, why not get that information into a system that uses that key piece of data for lots of other processes.
Using a cloud based accounting system allows business owners to record information from anywhere at anytime. Mobile apps allow you to send invoices on the go. And let’s be honest, sending invoices is the most important financial function for you as a business owner, especially if you are on the move all the time doing jobs for lots of customers. But when you send that invoice to your client, the following things will automatically be updated if you use accounting software. VAT (if applicable) will be recorded and posted into the balance sheet and consolidated with other sales and purchase data ready for the next VAT return. Your debtors, the people who owe you money, will be updated if the client did not pay at the time of invoicing. This will allow you to monitor the cashflow and your client credit limits, and be notified as soon as the payment date has passed. Essentially, you can forget about monitoring the payment until you receive the notification. And you will also be able to review the company performance for that day/week/month/quarter/year at that point in time and compare it to the same time period for the day/week/month/quarter/year before. All of this for sending out one invoice - which you would have had to do anyway.
Using intuitive cloud based accounting systems like Kashflow allows business owners to be more productive in the front office by being more efficient in the back office. Business value is not achieved by working on your books late into the evening or on weekends. That may be one way of getting things done, but I like to think that people have better things to do than paperwork.
I understand that if you as a business owner have been doing things a certain way for years, finding the motivation to change is difficult. You may have looked at accounting systems years ago and didn’t like the terminology or accounting jargon in the software. I know, I didn’t like it either. Software development has changed. Gone are the days where substance over form ruled. The premise back then was to build software to get jobs done. The developers rarely gave two hoots about the end user experience just as long as it worked. Today, the tables have turned and software adoption through great, easy to navigate, easy to understand user interfaces have taken over. All of a sudden colours do matter, the ability to customise functionality matters, and brand matters, with all of this being easy to do within the software by the end user themselves. And this is what has been achieved. Not only that, the functionality is designed for the business owner and not the accountant. It’s for you!!
If you are feeling sceptical about the simplicity of a cloud based solution, why don’t you try it for free for 14 days by clicking here.
The role of today’s accountant is to support their clients in growing and developing their business in line with improving processes which may be linked to the finance functions in the business, along with the traditional compliance requirements. Promoting technology and helping clients engage and adopt with this technology is now part of that role.
If you need any assistance, please feel free to get in touch with me or contact a member of the Zoosme Accountants team to walk you through any of the processes. Once you have engaged with us, you'll have to find another use for the stationery cupboard.
RSS Feed