Streamlining your small business bookkeeping can save you time, with some automation saving the business owner hours in the office each week. Below are just 5 of Mackenzie Group’s favourite tips and tools for automating your business bookkeeping. We may be a little biased, but number 5 is our favourite.
- Accounting Software
The first step in any small business is having a cloud-based accounting system, the favourite at Mackenzie Group is Xero. Most online accounting software has built-in features that will reduce the time your bookkeeping takes and improve the accuracy of your bookkeeping, from simple features like automatic bank feeds to AI.
- Document Capture Software
Automatic document reading software, also known as OCR software, has improved immensely in the past few years and has improved more and more as time goes on. Software like Hubdoc can allow you to automatically read, categorise and submit documents like a bill to your accounting software, requiring no input from the business owner.
- Point of Sale/Job Management Integration
Having a complete technology ecosystem working together can make a small business successful. By having your POS System or a Job Management System integrate with your accounting software you can get accurate and up-to-date information in your accounting system allowing you to not only save time on having to manually input data or double-handle data like payment but also ensure a higher level of accuracy.
- Bank Rules
Although not a favorite at Mackenzie Group as it isn’t best practice bank rules in your accounting system can streamline the allocation of recurring transactions. The biggest downside to bank rules is not having your source document (bill/receipt) attached directly to the transaction.
- Hire a Bookkeepers
The number one way to reduce time in doing your bookkeeping is by hiring a bookkeeping firm to do it for you. By having an experienced bookkeeper doing your bookkeeping on your behalf you can trust the integrity of your data and have it done most efficiently.
There are many ways to help automate your bookkeeping in your small business but using software and more importantly, making all that software talk to each other is key. If you need assistance in helping automate your bookkeeping or outsourcing your bookkeeping then don’t hesitate to reach out to us so one of our awesome Geelong small business bookkeeping experts can help you.