Coming to Terms with Selecting Accounting Software

by Mohimenul Islam SEO service provider

If you are a small business owner, then no doubt balancing your books, organising your taxes, and doing your financials can induce more than a little stress at times. This is likely to be all the more the case when you don’t have a specialist business advisory team or virtual CFO around to do this work for you. Its hard to juggle the changing compliance environment regarding PAYG, CGT, and other rulings and also sit down and have to space to financially measure your boldest business visions. This is when accounting software becomes at attractive addition to your business processes. It simplifies; it makes for more time.

Software-based automation is becoming the norm, not the exception. For example, the ability to automate processes for recognising transactions and documenting storage is becoming the standard of efficiency, rather than the exception. Payroll apps like T-Sheets and logbook apps like Logbook Me are forging a way forward in real-time automation of managing your staff hours, payments, and vehicle costs. Receipt apps such as Receipt Bank can ease this burden significantly. All you need to do is take a photo of your receipt on purchase and the app does the rest. These can help you manage you accounts so you can apply for grants that can you're your overseas such as the EMDG. Other businesses are right now using the time they have saved to explore the feasibility of R&D rebates in light of recent audit activity on this very generous grant, so that they can gain an edge over the competition. If every other business has this efficiency, won’t you fall behind if you don’t update?

This commonality of updated cloud and bookkeeping software is impacting regulators. Government bodies in Australia now expect you to use such software, so much so that you might face penalties for not being up to date. This can be increasingly hard to wrap your head around, especially if you are a business from overseas looking to expand to a new compliance jurisdiction. For example, measures such as Single Touch Payroll (which is already effective for larger businesses and will be required for all businesses from 1 July 2019) mean every time you pay your employees you need to make a digital record that meets regulatory stipulations. It’s looking like updated software is what will give you an edge in avoiding tricky tax audit situations.

But you will need to be smart about it. You can’t just dive in to the first software solution that comes across your path. There are questions you must ask. Who will use the new system in your business? If you implement new accounting software there is often a restriction on the number of simultaneous users. Do you need to integrate it with an outsourced CFO or external auditor? Obviously you want to give full access to some in your business and limit access to others. Can the system accommodate this?

How will the new software impact on your internal business? What level of training and support is provided by the accounting software provider? How easily can you train new staff in using the software? Since new software will often adjust your internal processes, it may be an opportunity to improve these functions as you implement the new tech.

Taking the time to answer these will strengthen not only the compliance and efficiency of your company, but its internal processes. Communication is increasingly primarily software based. For example, there is a trend toward communicating by apps on phones, even at the expense of email. Accounting software streamlines this process and encourages better communication with external accountants, tax accountants, auditors, and CFO-level experts who manage complex issues such as subcontractor regulation.

Your accounting software may have you focusing on traditional functions, such as general ledger, transaction recording, and profit and loss/balance sheet reporting. You may be relying as much as possible on the bare minimum to manage increasingly complex issues such as PAYG compliance, such as Excel. On the other hand, perhaps you also need it for inventory tracking, planning management, payroll, sales processes, purchase ordering from suppliers, fixed assets management, etc. What needs to improve? What is out-of-date? As you answer these questions you will go a long way to lifting your business into a place where you have more time for loftier visions.