Many entrepreneurs are extremely good at the services their business provide, but not as good at running their business says Edmonton bookkeeping. In fact, company that makes QuickBooks, Intuit did a survey of small business owners in order to test them on some basic business financial literacy. They asked them questions like how to improve the cash flow in their business, what is an accrual, and what is the role of the balance sheet and income statement. Out of all of the people that responded to the survey, 82% of them scored less than 70% on their financial literacy test. Because many entrepreneurs struggle with understanding their business finances, helping them use technology can help them significantly.
One of the ways that using technology can help entrepreneurs, is by automating the process of entering financial transactions into their bookkeeping software. Edmonton bookkeeping companies say that when entrepreneurs learn how to enter that information automatically, they can stop entering it manually which will save them significant amounts of time, but also improve the accuracy of the information that they enter. How they would do this, is by requesting electronic statements from their financial institutions. Most banks already offer that service, and if business owners are not getting their financial statements electronically they can start. All they have to do, is important that information directly into the bookkeeping software, and all the transactions included in that statement are automatically uploaded.
Another way that technology can help entrepreneurs understand their business finances, is allowing them to have a more meaningful biweekly meeting with their Edmonton bookkeeping company. By moving their meeting from a phone conversation to an interactive online meeting, if business owners can use team viewer, they will be able to follow along with their bookkeeper as they discuss the business finances, and explain the interim financial statements to a business owner. Understanding how to read their balance sheet, find errors and use that information while they look at their income statement can help entrepreneurs fix errors, and use that information in their business to guide them towards better financial decisions. By being able to follow along with their bookkeeper, they will does more easily see what is going on with their financial statements, and no what their bookkeeper is talking about.
One of the biggest questions that business owners have about using technology for their business finances, is how safe is it. Edmonton bookkeeping says the information that is kept electronically, whether it is through an online software, cloud-based or on a business owner’s computer is safe. The makers of bookkeeping programs ensure that the information is encrypted to a high degree, so that it is kept safe from hackers, or people who are trying to gain access to that software to steal financial information.
By using technology in their business finances, entrepreneurs can save time and improve accuracy of their business finances, and be able to gain a deeper understanding that can help them significantly in running their business.
One of the problems that entrepreneurs run into is that they are scheduled to meet with their Edmonton bookkeeping company, but they have not had the time to enter all the hundreds of transactions for tomorrow’s invoicing. This is a far more common than many people realize, and entrepreneurs either do not make enough time in their schedule to enter those transactions into their accounting software, or they underestimate how much time it is going to take them. Either way, they either have to meet with their bookkeeper without all of the information done, which will cause its own set of problems, or an entrepreneur is going to have to drop everything and enter all of that information last minute and on a panic basis, which could cause them to make many errors in entering that information. Fortunately, by using technology all of this can be avoided. Helping entrepreneurs save time so that they can enter all of their transactions on time for their biweekly meeting with their bookkeeper as well as ensuring the information that they do enter is accurate as possible.
One of the most significant ways they can do that, is by learning how we upload their bank and credit card transactions instantly. By asking their financial institutions as well as credit card companies to send them their statements electronically, they will be able to take that PDF file sent to them by their bank or credit card companies, converted to a CSV file and then directly uploaded into their accounting software. Edmonton bookkeeping says that not only can this save hours every single month which translate into dozens of hours every year, you can also significantly increase the accuracy of the information that they enter. In order for a business owner to enter their transactions, they have to enter the date, what the transaction was, what the coding is in the accounting software as well as the actual financial amount. If an error is made on any one of those things for any of the hundreds of transactions they have to enter, it can trigger errors throughout the rest of the software and the financial statements. By learning how to import that information, what was once a time-consuming job turns into a very quick upload once a month.
Another automation that business owners can use to increase the accuracy of the information that is uploaded to their bookkeeping software, is employee timesheets. In order for business owners to be able to enter that automatically, they have to be able to use time tracking software or an app. There are several available and all of them are compatible with QuickBooks online. By using that information, entrepreneurs are able to take that report that is generated by the software and upload that directly into QuickBooks online. Edmonton bookkeeping says that this can also eliminate errors, which actually create payroll issues. It also allows entrepreneurs to save a significant amount of time. The amount of time that they save depends on how many employees they have.