Accounting is an important part and is a requirement of any successful business. It shows that every business has a financial system that works primarily for accountability and profitability. Many businesses use a manual system to manage the accounting section of an organization. Manual data processing is not effective when you have to process huge amounts of data. This leads to the loss of data.
Nowadays, accounting software has become a vital need for any business. Whether a small business owner or a large organization, they now realize the importance of accounting software. They realize that managing finances manually will not help them achieve the expected results. Small business accounting software greatly reduces the capability that comes with manual accounting for human error. It facilitates easy budgeting and can allow you to access critical information in just a few clicks.
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A Brief Note on Accounting Software
Accounting software is a digital platform that evaluates and takes care of the financial condition of a business. It is recommended by experts to ensure stable cash flow to any small or large organizations. It mainly deals with capital needs, structure, investment opportunities, setting financial policies, and determining financial decisions.
The software allows business owners to track every financial matter inside the organization, including management of accounts payable, accounts receivable, ledgers, invoices, salaries, and even the company’s assets reports. It automates the tasks involved, reduces accounting costs, eliminates redundant data entry, and makes better financial decisions through real-time reporting.
So many options for accounting software is available in the market, finding the right accounting software for your business can be difficult. Here, I am discussing some factors that you need to consider when choosing accounting software for small businesses.
8 Factors to consider in choosing accounting software for small business
1. User-Friendly Software
The success of any software depends upon how smartly it is handled by the user and how smart software accomplishes your business needs. User-friendliness can be applied to every operating system, end-user application, proprietary in-house application, and many more technologies. It measures the success of the entire system. Whether small or large businesses, you need to search for a product that meets all financial accounting requirements in search of an accounting software solution.
2. Consider your financial needs
The right software means that it meets all your business requirements and provides you with the best opportunity to grow. A software-based on your needs looks at how your business operates and meets all your accounting needs. For this, you must first research and decide the features that you want strongly in your accounting software. Also, you need to consider whether your bank supports it, whether it should be online or set up, or whether it comes with a free trial.
3. Focus on add-on features
Add-on features are points that are intentionally included in the software for some business-specific requirements. Specific requirements may include system access, payment option compatibility, or allowing integration with other features. You need to pay full attention to it.
The software also provides you with features to remove additional features that are not suitable for your business. This makes your business less complicated.
4. Integration with Other Business Software
You should always be attentive while looking for upgrading your accounting software or search for the new one. You need to select software that is seamlessly integrated with other software in your business. Accounting is a crucial part of any business; thus, you need to choose it correctly so that it will not harm your business.
5. Compatible with banks
Good accounting software will give you an accounting package that will allow integration with your bank. This integration will make it easy to transact with your bank and you will be fully able to reconcile with your bank automatically. In this way, your time will be saved and you will be able to deal with the transaction soon. Thus, accounting software will give you a solution that will remove all the discrepancies in your small business and attract customers.
6. Scalability
An accounting system plays an important role in growing any business. Will be required which may increase with it. Accounting software includes features that also meet all the requirements of a multi-user accounting system. It introduces you to all the near-future demand and helps you in making the right business strategy. Therefore, it is a good idea to check what upgrades you will need to deal with in the future expansion of your business. And, you should also check how much those upgrades cost.
7. Data Security
When you choose online accounting software, data security is an essential aspect to investigate. While selecting accounting software, you need to ask for some details. Ask the company how they store application data and check whether software services are using HTTPS connections or not. The HTTPS protocol ensures that data transferred from your computer to the software company’s servers is encrypted and cannot be seen by hackers.
8. Customer Support
After choosing the right and advanced software solution, you must get timely support from the customer support team/expert for any query. Support offered by the development company for its accounting software is one of the vital factors to consider when selecting a software package. If your workers are not happy with the software or need some advanced features, they will directly call Customer Care for customization.
Other Features of Small Business Accounting Software
Here is a list of other essential features that your account software should have.
- Inventory, Out of Stock, and Waste Management
- Easy billing, invoice, and GST filing
- Tracking of expenses/projects by categories
- Perform bank reconciliation
- Manage details of customers and vendors
- View account payments and receipts
- View balance sheet, profit, and loss statement
- Reporting
- Manage employees and process payroll
- Centralized control
GST filling facility will get in accounting software
Goods and Service Tax (GST) was introduced by Government in July 2017. With the introduction of GST, other indirect taxes like VAT, excise duty, and service tax were abolished.
With the introduction of GST, many development companies began to develop or upgrade their existing software with GST compatibility. They wanted to develop solutions for their existing users as well as attract new ones. Thus, he developed good GST enabled accounting software. The software enables taxpayers, accounting professionals, and business owners to create seamlessly prepared invoices for GST, file GST returns, prepare GST reports, and manage their accounting data seamlessly. The following are some important features that GST software must-have.
- GST Ready Invoices
- GST Ready Reports
- ITC Match/Mismatch Reports
- Supports Cloud Technology
- Auto Calculation of Taxes
- HSN/SAC Code Lookup
- Data Security
- Cost-Effective
Frequently Asked Questions
What is accounting software?
Accounting software helps in performing various functions such as invoicing, billing, estimating, expense and time tracking, etc. With it, you can manage and record the day-to-day financial transactions of an organization. This way, business owners can efficiently handle asset management, expense management, revenue management, accounts receivable, accounts payable, reporting and analytics.
Why need Small business accounting software?
Accounting software can help automate many tedious tasks with bookkeeping for your small business, such as billing, tracking payments, and creating reports. This can free up your time to concentrate on managing your business process. Additionally, accounting software can aid in keeping your accounting in order.
Why is it essential to integrate your business with accounting software?
Accounting software lowers both operating expenses and capital expenditures because it eliminates the need for companies to purchase hardware or hire additional IT staff.
What are features of an advanced accounting software?
Accounting software helps you in keeping track of the money coming in and going out of your business. Following are some features that you need to look into your accounting software-
Inventory
Balance Sheet
Tracking
What factors to keep in mind while choosing accounting software?
Before purchasing accounting software, a business owner should research the software, its benefits, and its features. You have to consider your business needs before making the final decision. and must know the following factors: –
You need to find out who will be using and how many user accounts will be using your accounting software.
Determine the types of key tasks that you are required to perform for accounting.
Choose your accounting software that deals with multiple payment options.
You need to find out whether your business requires specific accounting requirements or not.
Determine whether your accounting software provides appropriate customer support for your business.
How can Accounting Software help your business?
Accounting software can help to maintain accuracy in records. It automate the repeatitive manual tasks, understand your finances in a better manner and allowing you to generate financial reports. It performs various functional that help you business to grow-
Invoice generation and sending are facilitated by accounting software.
It aids in the formulation of estimations.
Accounting software facilitates expense tracking.
It assists with filing tax returns.
It assists in monitoring the cash flow or profit and loss.
It streamlines the process of forecasting and deciding budgets.
Wrapping up
Once you put your time and money into an accounting system for error-free accounting, you want the best solution. Once you keep using it, switching to other software solutions is not acceptable. So, you need to be very careful about finding the best accounting software for small businesses.
We at SWIL provide our clients with an astonishing software solution that is compliant with business intelligence across industry verticals. Visit our website, get in touch for free trial versions, and see how the software fits your business requirements.
