Technology is rapidly moving at speeds faster than the “blink of an eye.” It used to be that we do everything manually, and what took hours to prepare a simple financial report can be done in a few minutes with the advent of accounting software.
Nowadays, accounting software has greatly improved, and the onset of online software makes it more feasible to collaborate even if one is not on-site. The type of software that fits a company depends on many factors. But the accounting software now is generally classified as to whether it is for small- and medium-sized businesses or for large companies. It is then further tested as to whether it meets the requirements of the business or not.
Most if not all of the new solutions in the market are cloud-based. There are the traditional accounting software that can be downloaded, but because of their price and the speed at which technology changes, they might be obsolete in a few months and have to be updated.
What is more popular now are the subscription type of software where you pay a fee on a monthly basis depending on the number of users you have and the features your business needs. If you are a small business, stay away from software intended for large companies because you might end up not using many of their features while you pay a large sum for acquiring and maintaining it.
The advantage of an online software is the automatic update, and your data immediately backed up in the cloud. The top software in the market can be easily integrated with add-on solutions. Thus, the business can start with basic features like invoicing, disbursements or inventory management and later purchase add-on solutions for a minimal fee to meet the needs of the business as it grows.
PC Magazine considers Quickbooks as the No. 1 accounting software online, while simpledollar.com considers it also as one of the top 3 software online with Zero and Freshbooks sharing the top slots. These are all cloud-based, and the top accounting software for small and medium business because they can easily integrate with many applications like customer-relations and inventory-management tools and are user-friendly.
The subscription price of accounting software is very affordable. You no longer have to buy the traditional downloadable software. With the Internet becoming more affordable and more available nowadays, there will come a time when even traditional software and spreadsheets become obsolete.
We all started with using spreadsheets or Excel. But the online accounting software is getting more popular, and it has more advantages than the spreadsheets. Some of the advantages include enabling the business to generate financial reports in real time without having to wait for month-end. Even if you are traveling and need to update your finances, your transactions are easily viewable, and reports are easily generated. Spreadsheets are more prone to errors and sometimes take more time to detect, but the online software provide audit trails and pinpoint accountability as to who erred or made fraudulent entries.
As your business grows, you may step up to the higher versions, such as the Quickbooks Desktop Enterprise, Oracle NetSuite, SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Sage (formerly Peachtree) with enterprise-resource planning as additional features.
It may be hard to make the change from Excel to an accounting online software, but there is no other choice but to innovate or one left behind. And there are many accounting software with features best suited to one’s business and are at the same time user-friendly and with backups secure enough to make you sleep soundly at night. More important, they are a lot cheaper than the traditional variety one wonders how one missed them in the first place.
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Wilma Miranda is the managing partner of Inventor, Miranda & Associates and Certified Public Accountants, board of director member of KPS Outsourcing Inc. and treasurer of Negros Outsourcing Service Inc. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of these institutions.