Accounting in businesses used to involve a lot of painstaking process of paperwork, but in this digital age, even small businesses can highly benefit from accounting software available in the market. Even the smallest businesses, when they make use of accounting software, can reduce human errors and gain insights that would have taken ages if done in the old paper form.
Small businesses looking to ditch the old accounting process with piles of papers but want a sure way to arrive at accurate calculations should make use of cloud-based accounting software. Cloud accounting solutions offer a number of benefits such as businesses being able to access their data anywhere, integrate with other third party cloud applications and banking solutions, have a better backup, get instant access to upgrades, and fix bugs quickly. The best benefit that cloud accounting software offer is better security, which is why a lot of businesses have been shifting to the cloud.
Accounting software can be a helpful tool to make the time consuming business process an easier task as well as become a source for vital business information. However, choosing which accounting software program to use for a specific business shouldn’t be taken lightly. Not every accounting solution available in the market has the same principle as ‘one size fits all’. Small business owners should take into consideration the type of their business as well as their accounting needs to make a smart assessment of which product to use.
If you’ve had enough of the ancient way of accounting, here are my picks for top 5 accounting software for small businesses to help you manage your finances on the cloud:
As the online version of the popular desktop accounting software, QuickBooks, this allows businesses to work on their accounting tasks anytime, anywhere via mobile devices. QuickBooks Online offers small businesses to make any place a work place. This is perfect for small business accountants who are always on the go. It allows you to do all types of accounting tasks like custom invoices with your company logo and chosen font, expense reports with digital receipts, payroll calculations in a few clicks, as well as pulling in real-time data from your bank and credit card accounts. It also has a feature where you can provide secure access to your accountant or bookkeeper so you can collaborate with them anytime, anywhere across all devices.
This cloud-based accounting software that is accessible on desktop and mobile devices, combines all the tools small business owners need to manage finances, send invoices, and track time regardless of place and time. It lets small business owners get paid It allows users to import expenses from a bank account or a credit card, taking digital records of receipts, and get paid faster with by enabling credit card payments, PayPal or via 12 other payment gateways. It features an easy-to-use and intuitive interface, data encryption and automatic data backups to multiple datacenters to keep every account’s information safe and secure.
This accounting software is especially designed with small businesses in mind. Sage One includes features like sending invoices to customers; track pending, sent, and overdue invoices; email payment reminders, recording and categorizing income and expenses, generating accounting reports, linking bank and credit card accounts, accept credit card payments via Sage Payment Solutions or PayPal, as well as automatically applying payments against invoices. As a cloud-based application, it also provides small businesses with real-time collaborating for teams and customers.
As an online accounting software aiming to grow a business, it provides all the tools needed by small business to have a better management of their finances. It can track money coming in to an account by creating and sending invoices, and money going out by tracking expenses and vendor balances. Zoho Books also allows users to connect their bank and credit card accounts, automatically fetching and categorizing transactions. It also allows businesses to invite collaborators to integrate online business tools like Google Apps, Google Checkout, PayPal, Authorize.Net, and other Zoho business tools including Zoho Projects and Zoho CRM.
Xero is also an ideal solution for small businesses since its features are specifically designed for their needs. Some of Xero’s features include invoices and customer payments to expense management, payroll, purchase orders, tracking of inventory, bank reconciliation, as well as financial reporting. It can also integrate a wide range of business application add-ons.