Running a business is not only exciting and often a life’s dream for many, it’s also a challenge that uses a lot of your time and money. Running a successful business may well be down to having good accounting along with strong marketing and sales, but in 2019 you should also focus on how software could help you.
Software is everywhere. From the device you’re reading this on right now, to your car, TV and of course, your accounts. Spreadsheets, be gone!
There are loads of ways you can automate your business and grow to be more successful and profitable.
We often help businesses get automation in place to take the mundane and repeatable accounting tasks off their hands, so here are a list of our favourites for you to think about implementing.
Automatic Bank feed
Years ago, accounting and bookkeeping would involve printing out (or even waiting for posted versions of) bank statements. Matching up the opening and closing bank balance and then reconciling all the transactions was the only way to get a good set of accounts.
Now though, with accounting software like Xero, you can link your bank feed directly into your accounts and bookkeeping package, so you have a live feed that’s always up-to-date.
Bank feeds can:
- Create outgoing payments to reconcile against.
- Create incoming payments to match against invoices
- Give you an opening and closing balance.
Bank feeds remove (almost entirely) the need to input data for your banking transactions; saving you time and avoiding data entry errors.
Repeating invoices
Having clients and customers who pay the same amounts each month is not only great for business as you’ll have some recurring income, but you’ll also have tasks you can automate and save time on.
Creating invoices is essential if you’re going to get paid but it can take so much time many business owners put this task off.
Automate your regular invoices. In Xero you can create a repeatable invoice with ‘Placeholders’ that will add the month or week into your invoice description or item lines.
Set them up to run and tell Xero when your invoices go and when you want the system to chase them. Simple.
Invoice chasers
Getting paid on time is important and one of the best ways to positively affect your cashflow. One way to do this is to chase your invoices and make sure you’re on top of those debtors.
Setting up late payment reminders in your accounts system will not only take a task off your hands it will make sure you never forget to chase a late payer and keep those customers paying on time and not falling behind.
It’s not unusual for late payments to mount up and make your service look more expensive that it looks when it’s spread out over a few months. Xero and systems likes Invoice Sherpa are great for keeping your invoices paid promptly.
Timesheets transferred to Xero payroll
Paying your staff is obviously something you’ll want to do promptly and correctly and it’s another job that can benefit from some automation. Paying staff through My Payroll means you can seamlessly link your staff’s timesheets to your payroll by allowing staff to complete the timesheets, upload them for approval, and then someone can check them and upload to payroll.
Xero Payroll is then linked to your main accounts, keeping everything tidy and all in one place.
Quotes linked to project management
Xero is now linked to Workflow Max as this makes quoting for and invoicing your projects a simple and seamless process. Invoicing and quoting on time and at the right point during a project can make or break a business. Forgetting to ask for payment can cripple your cashflow. When you’re in the thick of delivery, it can easily happen.
Xero’s link with Workflow Max means that you or your team can create invoices or quotes from clients and jobs in Workflow Max directly into Xero. You still have the ability to approve them at your end, too.
Auto-generated invoices
There are a few ways to save time on the invoices sent to your business too. In the old days, these would have been printed out, data inputted, and then stored on file. Now though, you can store the invoice digitally and even input the data in your accounts package using software.
One way to do this is to forward any invoice you get emailed to you to your specific Xero email. This will then generate the invoice on the ledger and store the digital version of the invoice with it.
There are some nifty tools that will use Dropbox and photo-scanning technology to upload your invoices to your cloud accounting package. ReceiptBank and Expensify will take any invoice from PayPal, your camera, or a Dropbox folder and then process and upload your invoice to your purchase ledger.
Then when you pay the invoice, if you’ve got your bank feed set-up, all you need to do is reconcile the payment, as Xero and other accounts packages will match them up for you automatically!
More valuable time saved.
Software can grow your business and profits…
There are loads of great uses for software in your business and your accounting is no different. If you’re doing a lot of the same things over and over again, look into automating the process and find some helpful software to make things run smoothly.
Xero is fabulous for this and their ethos of reconciling your bank rec daily is certainly something we appreciate.
Need more help? Contact us now and we’ll see how software like Xero, ReceiptBank, and bank feeds can save you time and money and help your profits rise through a more organised and process-driven business.
