5 Ways Automated Accounting Software Can Save Your Business Money

If you’re like many small businesses, you’ve probably gotten creative in response to the economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. You may be finding ways to reduce your expenses out of absolute necessity – not simply because it increases your profits.

Accounting software can help you save money in ways you might not have considered. By switching from a paper to an automated system, your business can:

1. Reduce errors

When you use software like QuickBooks, your accounting accuracy improves dramatically. Because all of your records and transactions are organized and easy to access, you’re far less likely to make mistakes that can lead to supplier late fees, tax penalties, and even lost customers.

2. Budget wisely

You know you should have a budget, but it can be hard to predict your income and expenses – especially these days. QuickBooks comes with specialized tools that can help you finally complete this challenging task. You could even start with your current income and expenses and build a budget based on this real-life data. When you’re deciding where to spend your money, you’re less likely to make a purchase that will force you to cut back elsewhere. A budget guides you in making important spending decisions.

3. Track your inventory

You’re probably familiar with the problems that poorly managed stock can cause. If you’ve ordered too much of an item that isn’t selling, you have too much money tied up in unsold inventory. On the other hand, if you’re not reordering in time to fulfill all of your orders, you lose sales. When you automate your inventory management, you can tell at a glance where you stand with your stock.

4. Simplify your payroll

When you lose time, you lose money, and there’s no other accounting task that can eat up more hours than payroll. When you automate this process, you enter information about your employee and contractor compensation, payroll tax requirements, and benefits – once. All you have to do in preparation for each payday is enter the hours worked and make any necessary adjustments for items such as miscellaneous deductions and reimbursements. Payroll software handles all of the complex calculations for payroll taxes and retirement plan benefits. It can even submit your payroll tax deposits and tax filings on time, automatically.

5. Run pre-built reports

How long would it take you to create an accounts receivable aging report or a profit and loss statement based on your paper records? This is difficult and time-consuming to accomplish, even in Excel or Google Sheets. QuickBooks comes with dozens of pre-designed templates for real-time reports that provide detailed breakdowns of your revenue and spending. You just open a report, change the dates, and add any other desired filters, and the report appears.

No business wants to spend more than it has to on its operational costs, and accounting is clearly an area where you can save money by automating. If you don’t know where to start, contact us. We can get you set up with accounting software and provide training and ongoing support.