It is vital for small business owners to invest in Accounting/Bookkeeping software to ensure they are keeping track of the most important part of their business: the cash.

Not only does it enable effective decision making, it also helps to give the small business owner a hands-on approach to their business by having easy access to all their company information at the touch of a button. This can mean the difference between success and failure for a new start-up business. But it’s not only the start-up businesses that require accounting software packages, many established businesses would run more efficiently and effectively if they were using a time saving accounts package.

There are numerous features of accounting software that make it an invaluable tool for business owners. The benefits of using software, such as Big Red Book or SAP, are: you are able to issue invoices on time to customers in one quick and easy step; you can lodge receipts and keep track of cheques written and track them right through to your bank account; you can keep track of direct debits into your bank accounts; and you can perform regular bank reconciliations to keep on top of money in and out. Not only can you keep track of VAT, you can do your VAT returns at the touch of a button. You can keep track of stock items and prices of stock, which can be broken down into cost prices and varying price levels.

Once you have your basic transactions recorded in the system you have easy access to all your company’s financial data and so can see the profit and loss figures for your business at any stage. There is a wealth of reports that can be interrogated to analyse your businesses’ performance and to help you keep track of debtors and creditors. The reporting capabilities of most accounting software systems are invaluable to business owners as they contain real information on the business performance. Any business owner still operating on a manual system is not giving themselves the upper hand in their business dealings. It is surprising how many small businesses today still operate off old paper receipts and delivery dockets with a handwritten list of people that haven’t paid an invoice, etc. If a customer rings up and you don’t have easy access to their previous account history it is often too time consuming to find the file with their information. This can lead to deals being made purely to avoid the embarrassment of not remembering previous orders or conversations with individual customers. With a computerised system you simply select your customer details and see all the previous transactions on their account. Some software allows you to go that bit further with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) module, which allows you to record other information about customers such as a log of all calls made to that customer and all correspondence sent by email or post to that customer. These systems help fine-tune the management capabilities within a business.

Todays business owners need to be on top of their accounts and, at a minimum, should be able to see exactly where their business stands financially at any given time throughout the year and not just at their financial year-end. It is far more useful for accountants to receive an organised set of data at the end of the year instead of a shoebox full of receipts! The tools to be effective and make the best decisions for your business are out there for you, you just need to make the decision to utilise them.