Every small business has a lengthy to do list and it’s very easy to let admin fall by the wayside. Thankfully, the technological advances of the last decade have resulted in software that can adapt tedious tasks like accounting into a more familiar medium for the modern small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). It is now significantly easier to deal with accounting, invoicing and backing up files. Some software packages even do all three!
Using these technologies means small business enterprises can avoid the loose ends that so often threaten to grow into finance-draining monstrosities, whether that particular monster be lack of efficiency or an upsetting HMRC fine.
Keep your head in the cloud
Having incomplete information on transactions and account history can lead to SMBs missing out on essential tax deductions, or worse building up hefty fines with HMRC for incorrectly declaring incomings.
As HMRC requires you to keep a copy of all receipts, bills and transactions for 6 years cloud technology can provide one of the easiest platforms on which to store this information. It’s also a more organised system than the usual messy ring binders or boxes stuffed full of crumpled papers that you have to sift through – that being said where you have hard copies keep them.
Cloud technologies can allow you to update your accounts on the go – they can be accessed on mobile devices for ease of inputting or checking information. As a small business affiliate, many of the transactions that take place will be out of office so being able to update on a mobile device is a godsend.
Having this information at the ready means you can check if you’re eligible for certain tax deductions. You can also keep an eye on your general incomings and outgoings. The speed and convenience of staying up-to-date on the cloud means that busy people are enabled to make decisions quickly, increasing efficiency as a business and as an individual.
Use accounting technology
For the new generation of SMBs specialising in digital communications, 3 Wise Bears, a modern accounting company that specialise in small business and freelance accounting, both use and suggest digital technologies like Xero. If you outsource your accounting this is a great technique to ensure you can get hold of real-time information about your accounts and have a simple and open communication with your accountant.
Xero allows you to import your transactions from bank accounts, thus giving you an easy setup and instant history of transactions. It can also be accessed from any mobile device. This makes it a great tool if your accounting is in-house, too.
It allows for increased efficiency – as long as you have the discipline to update information that you have to manually input. Often this is made easy to do. If you don’t have the discipline or the time to do so then outsourcing your accounting may be a good option. Find a firm that uses the up to date technologies.
Get paid on time
Without prompt payment small businesses will not survive because cash flow is relatively limited. Netsend, experts in invoice delivery, state that keeping a detailed record of accounts can help to guarantee payment from clients or customers. If accounts aren’t kept sufficiently organised then invoices that have not been paid may go undetected, or worse invoices may not be sent out at all.
Cloud accounting technology makes it simpler to chase up unpaid invoices. You can check-in with your accounts and view what has and hasn’t been paid. That way you can send a reminder or use a debt recovery service; Still Due for example provide a polite but effective way for getting late invoices paid by hosting unpaid bills on the internet for all to see.
Cloud accounting technologies also offer great ways of keeping up with paying your employees, monitoring hours or over time and calculating their monthly or annual salary. Of course a human eye needs to be implemented to double check everything is in order but these programs can cost much less than extra team members and will be more efficient. Thus will help you to streamline your business so that it can be lean but manage at an excellent capacity.
Technology doubles in capacity and halve in size every 18 months so it’s important as a small business person to keep current so that you don’t lose out on valuable techniques that can save you money and increase efficiency.
