5 Time-Saving Accounting Solutions For Your Small Business

 PRATIK DHOLAKIYA for Steamfeed.com writes: If you are a small business owner or a freelancer you will very well know how valuable your time is. You don several hats and are constantly engaged in a juggling act trying to do justice to your various roles –that of an accountant, a marketer, a PR professional, an invoicing and collection expert, and a seasoned strategist. Don’t you often wonder how you are going to fit in that 25th hour into your working day?

Quality online accounting and billing software will provide you with several tangible benefits, including:

• Simplified critical business processes
• Streamlined billing
• Faster invoicing and tracking
• Real-time analysis of your financials

This will help you keep a tab on the overall health, viability and prospects of your business.

Most of the good Web-based applications generate comprehensive reports which reflect your business performance. With their help you can identify problem areas and take remedial action.

Here are a few invoicing and accounting solutions which help you control, analyze and improve your business.

1) CloudBooks

CloudBooks is a feature-packed cloud-based accounting application that caters to all the requirements of small to mid-sized businesses.

Estimates can be viewed and commented on by clients. Approved estimates can be converted into invoices in a single click. You can also personalize the invoices and estimates. CloudBooks makes it possible for you to track open, approved and declined estimates.

Recurring invoices can be automated. CloudBooks help you track pending payments and invoices.

There are tools to facilitate efficient time and expense tracking. Unique and miscellaneous expenses can also be tracked. Recurring expenses can be automated and added to billable costs.

CloudBooks can be scaled up to meet requirements of large teams as well. The in-built live timer helps you track time against projects. Approved users can view project details and track time. Comprehensive invoices can be generated from completed projects, with all the costs and expenses accounted for.

Integration with PayPal and Authorize.net help your clients make payments online, quickly and safely.

CloudBooks offers a free plan which enables you to send out 5 invoices and support one client, with no additional access to staff or team mates.

The 3-tier subscription plans are for $2 per month, $10 per month and $20 per month.

2) Debitoor

Debitoor is a cloud-based application compatible with any OS. The responsive design makes it easy to use on the tablet, the desktop or the phone.

Estimates can be easily created. There is a provision to apply discount to the billed amount and add VAT rates. You can create lists of new customers and products, but there is no provision to duplicate the estimates. If you are using the paid version of Debitoor you can convert estimates into invoices once the client approves them.

There is only a single template for invoices and estimates but it looks nice and professional. It has space at the bottom for you to add notes.

Paid subscriptions allow you to duplicate invoices. You can also send late payment reminders but they cannot be automated. Debitoor has good expense tracking and reporting tools.

Debitoor offers free plans which allow you to send unlimited invoices and estimates, and track or record unlimited expenses. With these plans you can view sales and tax collection for the month or the quarter. But the Debitoor branding will appear on all communication, quotes and estimates.

Debitoor has a free trial period of 30 days for the full service. There are two monthly subscription plans for €5 and €10 respectively. The US version is up for launch soon.

3) KashFlow

KashFlow is a cloud-based accounting software that has won many accolades in the past few years. It is extremely user-friendly and makes accounting accessible to those who have no formal training.

Quotes or estimates can be easily created, sent across to clients, marked as approved and converted into invoices. You can automate recurring invoices and payment reminders. There are two default templates for invoices with limited customization options. Full customization is possible if you are familiar with HTML and CSS.

KashFlow has a very good reporting tool and can create 49 reports and charts. Basic inventory and stock management options are available. Project tracking tools allow you to keep tabs on expenses and income generated by individual projects. KashFlow also has good bill entry and bank reconciliation features. It also allows you to set multiple tax rates as applicable in the US. You can manually set the rates for state and county tax.

KashFlow offers multi-currency support and allows you to raise invoices in any currency which is extremely useful if you have foreign clients.

KashFlow has a free trial period of 14 days with no credit card required. There is a single pricing plan where you need to pay £18 per month for full access to the service.

4) GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is a simple and basic cloud-based accounting software.

The dashboard displays the cash flow and accounts, and intimates of new sales and miscellaneous expenses for the week. There are also tools to track unbilled hours, tax estimates and pending invoices.

Invoicing caters to most of the basic needs of small businesses. There are 12 templates for invoices for you to choose from, but no tools for customization. You can automate payment reminders and also be notified when invoices are overdue or when payments are made. GoDaddy does not allow you to automate recurring invoices.

PayPal and Stripe are the online payment gateways available to your clients. Payment when received can be easily linked to bank statement entry from the invoice page.

Reporting is not an advanced feature of GoDaddy and it can create only 6 reports. GoDaddy neatly calculates your taxes and also gives you an estimate of the due taxes for each quarter. Sales tax collected and owed is also computed.

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping offers a free version of the software which has very basic functions. The paid version has a subscription fee of $9.95 per month.

5) InvoiceMore

InvoiceMore is an online billing and invoicing service that provides you the basic functions with no bells and whistles.

You can create invoices easily and quickly, and the system is easy to navigate and comprehend. Invoices can be downloaded in the PDF format. They can be sent to the client via email or snail mail. Customization options are limited; you can add your logo to the invoices but there are no choices for templates.

Online billing is one of the strong features of InvoiceMore. It allows partial payments and recurring billing. You can also view billing summaries and pending payments. Recurring bills or invoices can be automated and can be generated from recurring products or services.

InvoiceMore is client-centric and you can view everything from the client’s view- invoices, products or items, payment, contact information and all other activity.

This helps you gain a comprehensive view of client transactions and history. You can also keep private internal client notes which makes it easy for you to recollect issues and minor, but important, details.

InvoiceMore has a free starter plan that can support three clients. You can send unlimited invoices but there are no online payment options, or secure SSL encryption of data. The paid plan charges a flat fee of $15 per month for full access to services.

Conclusion

Your business requires your attention 24*7. So what is holding you back from investing in accounting and invoicing software, which will help you devote your time to other pressing needs like building brand awareness and acquiring new customers? Would you not like to keep a tab on your finances via something as convenient as a free accounting app on your mobile devices? Give it a go and you will thank us you did so.