Bookkeeping is something that no company can avoid but everyone is annoyed by. Yet the importance of clean accounting is undeniable, for potential investors, for auditing, and for a clear overall view of the company’s financial transactions. Automated bookkeeping promises professional accounting with less effort – but what exactly does this look like? Let’s find out!
Automated bookkeeping involves software, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. With the help of those tools, you can simplify the process of recording and managing financial transactions. Automated bookkeeping therefore mimics human data entry in financial software tools. By integrating such a tool, you can automate various tasks:
Automated bookkeeping software can be integrated with your financial systems, such as bank accounts, credit card accounts, e-commerce platforms, and payroll systems. This allows the tool to retrieve important data from those sources, such as bank statements, invoices, receipts, or sales records. By using ML technologies, transactions are classified directly into the appropriate categories. Automation is particularly beneficial for high-volume transactions that are repeated on a regular basis.
Furthermore, employees can scan or upload images of receipts, whereupon the system set up extracts the key information. This way, the data is inserted into your accounting software without the need to keep paper receipts. You can even trigger reimbursement payments to the person submitting the expenses. The automated workflow can be connected to cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox or Google Drive to track expenses.
The advantages you will experience after successfully integrating automation into your accounting can essentially be summarized in three main points:
To achieve correct and clean bookkeeping with manual labor, you have to invest a lot of time. Given the fact that it is a repetitive task that needs to be done regularly, it not only wastes time but also money. Automated bookkeeping saves time and therefore resources, as it is scalable and allows businesses to handle growing transaction volumes without increasing the administrative workload. This way, you can increase efficiency and spend more time on the tasks that matter.
Like all important documents, your accounting data should be organized so you can easily find and understand the information you are looking for. With automated bookkeeping, you can generate financial reports and analyses which provide valuable insights into your company’s financial records. It also means you’re always working with real-time data and have the possibility to collaborate with multiple users on financial tasks. Automated bookkeeping also increases transparency when it comes to internal and external audits, as it creates an audit trail for each financial entry.
By replacing manual work with automation, you minimize the risk of human error. This way, you ensure that the transaction details match across your financial systems and that discrepancies are detected more quickly. Calculating payroll, for example, can be quite complex as there are numerous laws to comply with. However, automated accounting easily tracks hours, calculates salaries and tax amounts, and generates paychecks.
There are many tools that can help you set up automated bookkeeping – here are three that really stand out:
The cloud-based accounting software lexoffice is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses. With a range of features and a user-friendly interface, it ticks all the boxes and is a valuable resource for those looking to save time and improve financial accuracy.
The Swiss business management software bexio allows you to streamline various aspects of business management, including accounting. Thanks to features such as bank reconciliation or expense tracking, companies can ensure tax compliance and can optimize their accounting processes.
The invoicing and accounting software FastBill is a handy tool for small businesses and freelancers, offering features such as automatic data capture and financial reporting. Designed to simplify certain aspects of bookkeeping, it is a reliable partner to reduce the administrative burden of manual data entry.
As nerve-wracking as accounting can be, it no longer has to be, if you start using financial software for bookkeeping services. By automating these complex yet extremely important tasks, you can increase your business efficiency, benefit from structured financial data and reduce errors. Let’s get accounting back to what it should be: a foundation that supports the rest of the business, not a burden. Arrange a free consultation with us now!
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