Seven Accounting Workflow Tips for Small and Medium Businesses
The success of an accounting firm depends on how it delivers its services. Delivering more in a shorter time while operating at an economical budget helps an accounting firm flourish by leaps and bounds. Therefore, accounting workflow management forms an essential aspect of accounting firms as it helps accountants optimize their work processes and keep tabs on business improvements.
In this fast-paced world, Millennial customers expect digitized processes from all professional services, including accounting firms. Additionally, the latest technological advancements are making it possible for accountants to automate their day-to-day accounting chores for boosting efficiency and serving their clients better. Considering the benefits offered by the automation of accounting workflow, more and more accounting firms across the world are automating their account management workflow.
The Advantages of Automation
● Saves time:
When you automate your accounting process, you get the advantage of organizing large volumes of data with ease. It also allows you to complete repetitive transactions in the blink of an eye. What’s more, automation also allows you to streamline the process of account payments, tax payments, and much more.
● Ensures data security:
Paper-based accounting files are prone to cyberattacks and security breaches. Moreover, they can be easily misplaced or stolen, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for your business. Automated accounting is a safe and secure procedure as it protects your valuable data from cyber attackers as well as natural disasters.
● Reduces Errors:
Manual accounting is prone to errors and leaves adequate room for mistakes, such as paying wrong amounts, misfiling, etc., which could damage the reputation of your business. Automated accounting processes, on the other hand, streamlines your accounting procedures and minimizes the risk of human errors.
● Keeps Everyone on the Same Page:
Automated accounting enhances workplace collaboration and allows all team members to access any document, invoice, or file simultaneously from any corner of the world. Consequently, it allows your team members to share necessary documents, rectify errors, and confirm account-related details, whenever required.
In this post, we will shed light on seven essential tips on accounting workflow management for small and medium-sized businesses. So here we go:
- Pick Out the Essential Accounting Practices:
Make a list of the different services your accounting firm offers. Do a bit of online research on the latest online business trends to identify the most important accounting practices. A discussion with your clients and team members will also provide you with some valuable insights so that you can make informed decisions.
- Map Your Accounting Workflow:
In order to identify the right technique for improving your workflow efficiency, you need to prioritize the workflows of your accounting firm and then portray them with the help of a graphical representation. At the same time, try identifying the crucial figures and data to develop effective KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for the future. You can find out the required data by finding out the answers to the following few questions:
● The total number of staff members involved in managing your company’s accounting workflow;
● The time required to accomplish each step in the procedure;
● The overall cost of resources required for accomplishing the procedure in time;
● Activities that consume a great deal of time or utilize maximum resources; and
● The accuracy of the outcomes.
Once you derive the answers to these questions, you will be able to chalk out an efficient strategy to introduce the right technology for streamlining and optimizing your accounting firm’s workflow.
- Pick the Right Tool for Optimizing Accounting Workflow:
The market is flooded with a huge array of cloud-based accounting software systems to help you automate your daily accounting tasks. However, not all accounting software available in the market is designed to cater to the specific needs of your accounting firm. Therefore, you need to be careful before investing in an accounting software system. Before making the final purchase, make sure you ask the following questions–
● Will the accounting software improve your firm’s existing accounting processes?
● Does it offer multi-user access? If yes, how many users does it support?
● Does it offer multi-business support?
● Does the vendor offer technical assistance? If yes, what type of tech support does the vendor provide?
● Is the accounting software scalable?
● Is the software compatible with mobile devices?
● Does it facilitate third-party integrations?
● What is the total cost of the software?
● Are there any hidden costs for software installation?
● Are there any cloud storage fees?
● Does the software offer robust security features for protecting your company’s sensitive data?
● Does it offer automatic cloud backup features?
The list of questions cited above will help you determine if the accounting software you are planning to purchase would be a good fit for your accounting firm.
- Migrate Your Data:
Soon after you purchase the best accounting software, you need to chalk out a data migration plan to migrate your valuable data from the existing accounting systems to the new accounting platform. The most advanced accounting software comes with data migration tools to make your task simpler.
Once you install the new accounting system, make sure your accounting department is comfortable using the new software. Allow adequate time to your accounts team to understand the characteristics of the software so as to avoid confusion and chaos. At the same time, ask the software provider to assist your team so that they can understand the intricacies of the accounting software. Once your accounting team gets familiar with the software and starts executing the basic software functions with confidence, you may consider identifying and introducing additional integrations into the system.
- Integrate Additional Accounting Workflow Automation:
As soon as you integrate additional automation, you need to examine each of them to determine if they are working perfectly. During the testing phase, if you notice the non-functionality of certain tools, you may consider replacing them immediately.
- Communicating Change in the Process:
Introducing change in the accounting process is not an easy task; therefore, it is necessary to keep your workforce informed and involved throughout the process of automating your accounting workflow. It is advisable to inform your team members about the newly introduced changes and how those changes are likely to affect the workflow. Apart from briefing your team about the new technology, encourage them to ask questions so that they can get rid of their doubts and apprehensions.
- Constant Monitoring:
Once you and your team get accustomed to the new technological environment, you need to keep tabs on the efficiency and productivity of your accounting team through constant monitoring so that you can get the most out of the new software.
● Find out how much time your team spends on accomplishing the day-to-day tasks and the time spent on carrying out more complex accounting tasks.
● At the same time, find out if the frequency of errors is going down, and the quality of data is going up.
During this phase, you may witness some benefits of accounting workflow automation immediately, while some elements might take a considerable time to prove their efficiency.
The Bottom Line
In today’s digital era, digitizing accounts have become mandatory for accounting firms to meet the growing demands of customers and stay ahead of the competition. You can also see the top most used accounting software for your business to grow your business. We hope the seven tips shared by us in this post will help you automate your accounting workflow with ease.