If you are a small business or a startup, you might not have a full-fledged accounts department budget. Nonetheless, you need your financial management to be as full-fledged as it gets. Some small businesses and startups might even have the budget for full-scale accounting teams, but business owners also need live, on-the-go control in today’s environment.
Moreover, today’s creative small business owners may or may not have the background or the inclination to understand heavy-duty accounting spreadsheets. They want the answers they seek presented in formats that they can understand, and they want to be able to dig out this information independently, whenever they need it.
Enter small business account management solutions. Finally, business owners have a cost-effective 360-degree solution to their accounting requirements. If you haven’t already, read our article on how accounting software has become the need of the hour, not just for small businesses but for businesses of all sizes.
While the need for account management solutions is apparent, zeroing in on the right one is essential if its adoption makes any sense. Small business owners need to select a solution that offers an easy-to-use UI, error-free data, and cost-effectiveness out of their account management solution. A marked increase of convenience in account management is a must-have. Some tools are just non-negotiable if you are going to invest in business accounting software.
Let’s look at some selection criteria – or must-have tools – that you can reference while zeroing in on a solution that’s best for your small business.
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Receipt scanning software
As a small business owner, possibly with a small team, it would be a dream come true if you could trim down the time spent by you and your employees and overall employee annoyance levels when it comes to tabulating expenses and expenditure. Businesses are wising up to the number of hours – and productivity – lost on tasks that do not comprise an employee’s essential duties.
Looking for an account management solution allows you and your employees to simply upload a picture of receipts rather than spending hours on data entry.
A truly convenient tool will do all the grunt work of retrieving all the data from receipts, bills, invoices, and bank statements. The point is for tech to manage this task – that might have eaten up hours of productivity – within seconds.
Modern accounting solutions are also able to sort the captured data according to rules set by you. You can sort by geography or supplier, for example. The best business accounting software solutions out there also pack in the ability to understand and analyze the data.
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Invoice management software
As a business grows and adds on new clients, tracking payments naturally becomes a little chaotic.
Your account management software should bundle in invoice management as part of its offering. For example, in a solution like Dext Prepare, you have a Sales Workplace tool that allows you to upload goods and/or services rendered by your company. After this information is captured, the tech takes over the invoicing process. It becomes easy to have a standardized format and keep track of payments in the solution’s sorted and searchable format.
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Expense management software
Earlier, we discussed how your account management solution should eliminate time-consuming data entry.
What about approvals? Well, 360-degree business accounting software should make it easy to add deductibles and expenses, but it should also turn approvals into an at-a-click process. If there are various tiers within your small business or if you want to delegate expense approvals, then you should scour the market for accounting software that comes with thoughtful features such as adding additional expense approvers.
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Data Insights Tool
Given that you are already using smart tech when you opt for accounting software, why can’t all that data be translated into usable insights?
A solid account management suite will ideally let you do just that. You can go from mere supplier to a dependable consultant when you can suggest – by looking at data insights from client invoices – how they can increase value in their business transactions with your company.
You can also observe with ease where the capital outflow is heaviest and where there is room for curtailing costs. Additionally, you should be guaranteed a certain level of precision. A case is always made for business accounting software because it eliminates the potential for human error. This is already a given.
In addition, check that the account management solution you’re about to adopt comes with the ability to track changes and back-check data. The system should proactively spot errors, discrepancies, and anomalies before they become a bone of contention with clients or an expensive error for your small business.
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Tax Management Software
Suppose you sat down to calculate the amount you lose by failing to submit deductions on coffee meetings, transport tariffs, stationery, and office supplies. In that case, you might see a much larger figure than you had expected. Now multiply that figure by 12 to get an idea of how much can be saved annually on tax deductibles – these are often a collection of tiny sums that might seem too small to spend time over.
Your business accounting software needs to help you with tax management. It should be able to sort invoices by tax, and it should easily capture and tabulate tax deductibles – even better if the solution can flag up entries where you can avail a tax benefit. Click this link if you would like to check business accounting software for small businesses.
Avoid losing sight of the fact that as a small business, you are likely to grow soon, and as such, a scalable solution is in your best interest. Ideally, you want to avoid having to hop from one software to another as the company grows. Do observe user reviews linked to the software that you intend to adopt and always check up on what the solution provider says about security and firewalls.
Remember – an account management solution can bring professionalism and added productivity to your small business, but only if you choose right.
Interesting Related Article: “The Importance of Finance in Business“