Your cloud accounting platform is like your smart phone. On its own it takes care of all the basic functionality you need. But by adding apps, such as banking, news, messaging, emails etc. it becomes a much more powerful and reliable tool.
By maximising your cloud accounting software in a similar way to your phone, you can streamline your finance function, save valuable time, and improve the quality of your financial information – driving better productivity all round.
Here are 7 key areas that we suggest tackling first:
1) Invoice automation: If you are still manually scanning and typing in details for all your sales and purchase invoices… stop. There are lots of tech options out there to do the hard work for you. These include apps that enable you to take a picture on your phone, have it reviewed by the app’s software and then sent directly into your accounts at the click of a button. We see this as the quickest and easiest tech win around, delivering huge time savings.
2) Bank feeds: This is one of the key foundations to have in place before you can then build up your apps further. “Open banking” has paved the way and is a simple means of keeping your accounts up to date. No more manual posting bank entries. Used alongside invoice automation, we estimate that you can reduce your data input time by around 60% – and make your data more accurate and consistent too.
3) Payments: Fed up of constantly switching between Xero and your bank when making payments, constantly getting “timed out”? We’ve got your back! With apps that allow you to set the payments from inside your software, you will no longer have to switch back and forth. Plus, you can have your bookkeeper set up the pay run for you to review and then make one bank transfer to pay the lot.
4) Expenses: We know that right now expenses are on the back burner with far less travel and meetings going on, but isn’t it frustrating approving expenses, checking mileage – or just keeping your own log? Is the petty cash tin always short of invoices and missing costs? You will probably have spotted a theme by now – but there are apps for that too. From prepaid cards to automated expenses and mileage trackers.
5) Credit Control: ‘Cash is king’ has never been truer than during COVID. Whether it is making it easier for people to pay you, taking control of payments due with direct debits or chasing those people that haven’t paid, we can help to design solutions to keep the cash coming in.
6) Cashflow: Aside from actually getting the cash in, there’s also the issue of anticipating when it will come in or go out. Understanding the timing of payments in and out helps with planning, budgeting and raising finance. Most software has a basic function for this or, if you need a bit more detail, we can help with that too.
7) Management reporting: If the information you really need isn’t available, it’s probably because either the records aren’t up to date or accurate, or the standard reports available just don’t give you what you need. Our team can help improve the timeliness and quality of data and build bespoke reports into your existing system for you to use again and again.
How can we help?
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the types of apps that can help to deliver efficiencies and better information. Our team specialises in keeping up to date with what’s available on the market and how it can be applied. We can be involved as much or as little as you need. From help identifying the right apps to suit your business needs to offering specific training or support to get the most from your current set-up. Our role is to free you up to concentrate on doing what you do best… running your business.
Contact our team today for more information or email proptech@haroldsharp.co.uk.