1. Cloud-based accounting software
When you work in the cloud, it’s easier to store data and back it up. You won’t run out of storage space no matter how big your business grows. Cloud storage is also an asset if you have to access your data on multiple devices or make it accessible to colleagues and clients.
As a native Salesforce app, Accounting Seed’s accounting software stores and backs up your data in the cloud. Here’s a helpful resource from Salesforce on the benefits of the cloud.
2. Billing customers
Accounting software for accountants makes it easier to track billing and collect payments. With accounting automation, you can send off an invoice as soon as a sale closes, or set regular customers up with a recurring billing plan.
3. Paying Vendors
Writing checks, ordering checks, and recording business expenses can use up a lot of time, particularly if your company has a large workforce submitting expense reports. A good accounting program for accountants can print checks straight from the cloud, automate payments, and record purchases in accounts payable as soon as they occur.
How Can You Modernize Vendor Payment Processes? Read our guide to find out.
4. Entries In The General Ledger
Accounting software for accountants can format your ledger to include and name as many accounts as your company’s need—and eliminate the ones they don’t. If your organization does business overseas, accounting automation can handle the currency conversions for transactions recorded in the ledger. (Learn more in our Foreign Exchange Accounting guide.)
Optical scanning technology can enter a hard-copy invoice or bill directly into your accounting program. That reduces the risk of error that comes with manual data entry.
5. Dashboards and Reports
Once accounting automation takes over the routine parts of your job, it frees you up to provide company leadership with deeper analyses. Good accounting software for accountants offers dashboards that make it easy to study sales metrics, accounts payable, cash flow, and other business financials.
A well-designed interface will help you create reports and present the numbers to your bosses in an easily understandable way.
With Accounting Seed, your financial data is pulled into relevant Salesforce dashboards as well, making it easier to access data from your Content Management System (CMS.) Learn more about leveraging Salesforce and Accounting Seed dashboards for your business in these helpful guides:
6. Inventory and Orders
Monitoring inventory under a traditional system requires a lot of manual labor, particularly if a client has multiple warehouses and sales outlets. Accounting automation can simplify things by automatically adjusting inventory levels when a sale goes through.
Accounting software can track inventory levels in real time. It can reserve inventory for specific customer orders, and purchase replacement inventory if a level sinks too low.
7. Project Accounting
Without accounting automation, project accounting requires extra data entry. You have to track the expenses and revenue associated with each project, then eventually re-enter the numbers into the general ledger. Accounting software for accountants can integrate project ledgers with general ledgers. You only have to enter a transaction once to show up in both account books.
Looking for some pro tips for improving your project accounting processes? Explore the Guide to Project Accounting.
8. Tax Accounting
Tracking taxes—income tax, sales tax, property tax, payroll tax, and so on—and all the related exemptions, deductions, and rates can become a massive drain on your time. If a company sells retail goods in, say, six jurisdictions, that often means you’ll have to track six different sales tax rates. Worse, rates and rules can change any time a local, state, or federal government decides that it’s necessary.
Accounting automation takes the responsibility off your hands for tracking rates and calculating taxes. You’ll have more time to advise executive leadership on how to minimize their tax bill, instead of just calculating it.
Learn more about Accounting Seed’s sales tax accounting automation.
9. Data Security
Internal data stored in your accounting software would almost certainly be valuable to your competition. The risk of external or internal hacking is a fact of life, but the best accounting software for accountants comes with solid security features. These defenses may include a secure API, two-factor authentication, and monitoring for possible data breaches.
Learn more in our guide to Accounting Cybersecurity: Everything to Know.
10. Configuration and Customization
Different accounting departments need different accounting automation features. If you specialize in working with restaurants, your industry-based accounting needs will differ from, say, if you worked with banks or oil companies. Buying software you can customize and configure to suit your accountants’ needs is ideal. For example, the program you buy should be scalable, to handle more clients and accounts as your business grows.
