4 Benefits of Online Accounting for Your Business

The nature of small and medium sized enterprise in Australia means that owners and managers are always seeking an advantage. That advantage may be a way to save time, become more efficient, or simply make doing business easier.

In 2015, there is a growing number of business owners who believe they have found a way to get all three advantages by implementing one change. The best thing is that this change can be adopted across businesses as diverse as cafes, plumbing services, and personal training studios.

The change is moving your business to online or cloud based accounting. But what are the top 4 advantages?

Security

One natural disaster, or even an office-based disaster like a pot of coffee spilling on a file with all the business receipts, is all it takes to lose a year’s worth of financial information.

For example, if that stray coffee destroys your receipts, you may not be able to claim them as business deductions, as the Australian Taxation Office can ask businesses for substantiation (proof) of their deductions.

Online accounting software means that your data is safe and secured by a third party – one that spends millions of dollars investing in security.

Simplicity

Real-time data transfer is one of the modern miracles of doing business in 2015. But even emails can be cumbersome and clunky if you continually have to email your accountant information so they can do their job.

Accounting online means that information is updated in real time, like the live scores of a football game or the newsfeed on Facebook. Even better, this information can be accessed by everyone who needs it, at any time.

For example, a plumbing business with several vans and employees on the road at any given time can have access to all the invoices and accounts, again, at any given time, if their accounting is housed online.

Good online accounting software, like Xero, also allows bank account data to be automatically imported into the accounting package, meaning that your information never suffers from a time delay that can impact your business decisions.

Time and Money

Online accounting also saves time as you don’t need to manually match up your bank accounts and your accounting numbers. Even better, for those who had a bad experience with expensive CD-ROM based software packages, online software neatly fixes this problem.

Most online accounting software is adaptable, and is available on a monthly pricing plan. In addition, because it is delivered via the internet, updates come through on a regular basis, just like they do for your phone software. As an alternative, your accountant’s or bookkeeper’s Xero account is likely able to host your business accounts at a fraction of the cost of buying the service yourself.

Convenience

We know that it’s important to have a work/life balance, especially if you own or manage your own enterprise. Being able to quickly check accounts or send an invoice from your tablet or mobile phone, while you wait for a coffee or for a call, is a convenience that saves time and helps achieve that work/life balance by streamlining your work day and helping you to be more productive.

Xero is a great company that offers all of these conveniences with their online and cloud based accounting software, and has gained rapid adoption rates in Australia and New Zealand in particular over the last few years.

If you have any questions about online and cloud based accounting systems, including our experience with it, or have more general business questions, I would be glad to be of service.

Simply contact the Scott Partners team, either by email or call us today on 03 8686 9000. We can arrange an appointment to help plan how to make your business work more efficiently and effectively.