I’m Lyra the office dog, part of the team at Rowdens Chartered Accountants. This second and final blog explains why cloud accounting is so good for businesses, whatever their size.
My job is to let you know about the issues I think will be of interest and of course, have a bit of fun, chase a ball, stop you going down rabbit holes or digging massive holes for yourself and maybe help you pick up a few treats along the way!
The first blog (see Part 1) covered the pitfalls of desktop accounting software and goes on to list the advantages of cloud accounting. Part 2 now details how you can make the transition seamlessly and painlessly.
Doing doggie paddle upstream in a strong current
In this day and age, being tied to traditional desktop software or spreadsheets is like doing doggie paddle upstream in a strong current. Yes, you may survive but the tide of change is against you. Even the government has waded in and is bringing in making Tax Digital (MTD) for all taxpayers with the first initiative for certain VAT registered businesses starting in April 2019.
This will eventually require all businesses to keep digital records and submit their tax data online through MTD compliant digital software.
(Read my blog Making Tax Digital)
Think about moving to cloud accounting software today
Therefore, unless there are very good reasons for not moving to the cloud, you should move to a reputable cloud accounting platform as soon as you can. This can be daunting for many small business owners who worry about how long it will take to transfer the records and get up and running on the new system.
However, our experience has been that depending on what software you are currently using and the state of your records, the transition can be remarkably smooth and easy and quick to do.
These days there are some very good conversion companies like Move my Books who can help move the data and often the cloud software company will pay for the conversion.
Whatever cloud accounting software you choose and to avoid a dog’s dinner, do get help from an accountant or bookkeeper who is experienced and suitably qualified in the cloud package you choose. This will make the transition to the cloud as painless as possible and also enable you and your business to really reap the benefits of the cloud ecosystem.
Best of breed cloud accounting software
At Rowdens, we’re a Xero Gold Partner and have been specialising exclusively in Xero cloud accounting software since 2011. We use it for our own bookkeeping and accounting as well as recommending Xero to our clients.
There are other alternatives out there so do investigate them. However, Xero is the choice for many since it was designed specifically from the ground up to make life easy for a wide range of SME businesses. It’s the market leader in cloud accounting in this country with well over 700 apps that integrate with it.
Why businesses like using Xero
Our experience over the past 7 years of working with clients in the cloud has been that small business owners lap up Xero!
They find it easy to use, the software cuts down the time spent on repetitive tasks like bookkeeping and they can easily see how much they are owed or what their next VAT bill is likely to be.
One client said that she no longer worries about making mistakes as these are easily found and corrected. Xero is beautifully designed and extremely simple to use, yet powerful enough for multi-million pound businesses.
Xero add on - Receipt Bank
We have clients using many of the apps that integrate with Xero but the most used one is really cool, Receipt Bank. All you have to do is take a photo of a receipt on your phone or forward an emailed purchase invoice and it will read the information and download a copy of the invoice or receipt into Xero. Receipt Bank can now even fetch invoices from many online providers to save you having to download them.
This will save hours of bookkeeping time and stop you or your staff working like a dog. What could you do with the all the time saved? How about spending more time on growing your business or with your family or taking your dog for a walk? If you don’t have a dog, I could always be persuaded to step in!
Just jump in. The water is likely to be warmer than you might think!
The possibilities are endless with cloud accounting software so do investigate further and jump in. The water is likely to be warmer than you think and there are some real treats in store.
None of our clients at Rowdens have regretted it and some of them have surprised themselves - they’re now even enjoying the financial aspects of their business! Who knew accounting could be almost as much fun as chasing a ball!
Bye for now and thank you for reading!
Lyra
