Over the last few years, digital transformation has altered the way business activities are managed and accounting is a part of it. Digital transformation benefits both - employees of the organization as well as the clients. Access to advanced software and interconnected technology has made the accounting process seamless, and error free. 

Some of the digital solutions for accounting are paperless accounting, management of data quality, integrated consolidation system, accepting invoices and other documents through an interface directly into the system, etc. 

Following are some ways in which digital transformation is changing accounting and finance: 

Machines Complement the Human Brain’s Capabilities 

Machine learning and AI based applications are increasingly impacting the accounting related responsibilities. Here, the humans have an opportunity in disguise. They can become more productive and leave the repetitive tasks to the technology. Humans will be able to handle more clients and give them better insights into the project at hand rather than just punching numbers. 

In the near future, it is expected that the machines will become the best colleague for an accounting professional. Having said that, let’s not forget that machines can never match the level of emotional intelligence that humans can bring to any job. 

Accounting Tasks that the Machines Will Do 

Digital transformation will not only reduce the burden of humans but will also reduce the operational cost. 

Accounts payable/receivable processing - AI powered invoice management systems are already available that make the invoice processing seamless. The employees can learn the accounting codes that are right for every invoice. 

Supplier onboarding - The new technologies will screen the new suppliers and set them in the new system without any supervision of the humans. The system will verify information like the credit scores or tax information. 

Procurement - Generally, the procurement and purchase processes of any organization requires a lot of paperwork and uses different files that are not even compatible with each other. Digital transformation will ensure that the procurement system becomes paperless.

Audits - Digital transformation will ensure that the security will increase in the audit process. It will be possible to find the digital trail of who accessed a file and when. Furthermore, the accountants/auditors will be able to directly access a digital file and be saved from finding files in a cabinet. A digital approach to accounting will enhance the accuracy of the audit process.

To sum up, it can be said that a successful digital transformation of accounting and finance is when people and technology are paired in a way that both contribute their best skills.

At our company with 250+ people working we use GanttPRO. I'd recommend it. While searching in google I always hit upon Monday, Wrike, and other tools. But due to our small inner research of the tools, GanttPRO is a good value for its cost.

Unlike traditional offline means of marketing, the advent of digital marketing has made it possible for even small businesses to embrace marketing for their small ventures. While offline marketing cost fortunes, digital marketing gave them the ability to control the cost in various ways. 

The foremost challenge for any small business is establishing an online store. Building an eCommerce site is highly expensive hence for small business to embrace digital transformation here are some ways to go about it:

Social Media Presence

Social media just cannot be overlooked if an online presence is what you desire. Statista proposed report in 2019 suggests that “Among the key reasons why marketers find merit in using social networks in their campaigns are increased traffic, lead generation, and increasing fan loyalty.”

Social media rightly helps small businesses in bringing out their brand to a larger set of audiences. There are various channels to create your presence, however; you need to first determine your marketing objectives. 

Facebook:

Statista reports that “In India alone, the number of Facebook users are over 280 million”. Facebook has a large audience size in India alone. In the event “Fuel for India” they have expressed their intent towards supporting local business in establishing an online presence and selling over Facebook and WhatsApp. 

Twitter:

“This is amongst the top 3 social channels used by marketers”, reports Statista.

It is a great platform to drive engagement. However, it also depends on your niche and target audience.

Instagram:

Instagram evolved from an image-sharing platform to a channel that supports real-time video, short and long video formats, various filters and a lot more. Influencer marketing saw a surge in recent years and most vote for Instagram over other platforms. 

To create awareness for your brand or product you can start by creating accounting and get started with nano influencers that are promoting products related to your niche. This will ensure you gain the attention of the right audience.

YouTube:

YouTube is a search engine giant when it comes to videos. Start your own channel with a professional and consistent layout and thumbnails to provide information about your business in a compelling manner. Video marketing is set to spike in 2021 hence building your presence on YouTube is beneficial.

WhatsApp Business:

It basically provides businesses with an app to better communicate with their clients by offering alerts, help, and ultimately the alternative of running their business on their smartphones, on WhatsApp, rather than online elsewhere. In short, when the company owner or manager uses the WhatsApp Business app, the consumer may use the standard WhatsApp app.

Facebook Marketplace:

The Facebook Marketplace is a great way for a small business to get free exposure, build relationships with their customers, and make a little extra money. It's really amazing what a small group of powerful Facebook users can do to help your business grow.

The benefits for small businesses using the Facebook Marketplace to sell products or services are almost endless.

To get started:

1. Enter the marketplace by clicking on the shop icon.
2. Add photo of products
3. Add title
4. Add description
5. Price
6. Location & category

This will largely save your cost of creating an eCommerce site and then driving traffic to it. Here, you can benefit from a large audience of over 2 billion active users.

Ecommerce sites:

Another way is to register and build a store with eCommerce giants like Amazon or Flipkart. You can do this yourself or hire an expert or an agency to do it for you as you need to comply with various terms of these platforms and that’s quite complicated.

In final words, all the above mediums are meant to give you economic marketing options to benefit from online business.

Accounting software is the basic necessity for any business to track their income and expenses. Accounting software is required for keeping track of taxes, and it also saves time and hassles when tax season rolls around. Moreover, tracking expenses accurately can help you reduce your tax bill. Most professional bookkeepers rely on accounting software to meet their accounting requirements.

Some of the best top accounting software options to choose from for your business are listed below:

Quickbooks

Quickbooks is one of the most fully-packed accounting software packages for small businesses. Although Windows and Mac versions exist for the desktop, Quickbooks is working to push users into the cloud. However, the Mac version does not have a complete feature set of the Windows or online version, so focus on this before selecting this software for your business. Quickbooks Online offers multiple versions ranging in cost from $15 for the self-employed version up to $70 per month for the extended version. Also, you need to pay extra for payroll and payments.

Xero

Xero accounting software is always focused on the cloud, including 24/7 live chat support at no extra cost. Xero provides more than 600 integrations to help business owners manage invoicing, inventory, payroll, and a lot more. Managing time and money spent on specific projects is one of the most efficient software features so that no dollars slip through the cracks. Xero offers a beginner version for $9 per month. The premium version comes for $60 per month, including multi-currency, expenses, and project-tracking support.

Zoho Books

Zoho Books is best for small businesses as it provides several apps. It includes easy-to-understand dashboards and graphs and offers straightforward usability. One of the most efficient and useful service businesses’ features is automated payment reminders when your clients fail to pay for the services on time. Zoho Books also provide manual journal entries, financial statements, project management, automated banking, inventory, and collaboration tools. Its pricing structure comes at $9 per month for the basic version. Its professional version comes for $29 per month, with discounts when you pay for a one year package.

Wave

Wave is accounting software, which offers the majority of features for free for users. It also provides the ability to track personal and business finances in one place. It also provides free invoicing to make money, charges for payment processing, and payroll services integrated with the bookkeeping suite of tools.

GoDaddy Bookkeeping

GoDaddy Bookkeeping is a bargain accounting software starting at $3.99 per month for the first year. Its features are mostly on the primary side and do not comprise double-entry accounting. GoDaddy also makes time tracking and quarterly estimated taxes easier. One of the best parts are integrations with online sales platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. The pricing structure ranges from $4.99 to $14.99 per month. Moreover, it offers a 20 percent discount in your first year.

Final Words

Accounting software records and processes transactions for small businesses. Business owners, bookkeepers, and accountants can track accounts receivable, accounts payable, and receipts. Accounting software is very efficient in generating reports at tax time.

Payroll is an important part of every business. No matter how large or small your company is, there will always be a need for payroll services. For businesses that generate a large amount of cash each year, hiring employees to maintain payroll can become quite expensive, especially if you're looking to hire professionals like payroll experts and accountants. For these reasons, more companies are looking into outsourcing payroll services in order to cut costs associated with payroll preparation.

Advantages of outsourcing payroll

Relaxation from admin tasks

First, an outsourcing company will take care of the administrative details required in operating a payroll department. Since these administrative details are not necessary for running a payroll department, this will free up some money in your business budget for other purposes.

Reduce costs

One of the most apparent benefits is that it can allow you to save on labor costs. If you're looking to cut labor costs, there's no better option than to hire professionals to do the job for you. By outsourcing your payroll needs, you'll be able to focus on creating new business and marketing strategies instead of focusing on administrative tasks. When you compare the cost savings of outsourcing your payroll needs to those of maintaining your own payroll department, you'll see that outsourcing is the smarter business decision.

Professional services

Another advantage of outsourcing payroll service is that it will allow you to receive professional results. Most outsourcing payroll service providers are fully-fledged financial companies that offer several methods of providing their service. By contracting with them, you'll be receiving highly professional and expert payroll services. You'll be able to receive your payroll reports, paychecks, invoice fulfillment. This will allow you to save time, energy, and money by avoiding unnecessary hassles.

Direct deposits

Employees employed in small businesses often want direct bank deposits to be made, but it is very difficult to do so for small enterprises.

Each month, they have to roll out paper checks and still have to manage a lot of paperwork to maintain a list of rolled out payroll checks. Payroll outsourcing helps you to remove a lot of paperwork which thus eliminates the risk of theft. It is therefore less time-consuming and free of error, making life easier for small businesses.

In final words, outsourcing payroll means that your company wouldn't be responsible for the administrative burdens of maintaining your payrolls, such as calculating penalties, filing your paychecks and much more.

Created in 2006 in New Zealand, Xero is a cloud-based accounting system that primarily caters to freelancers and small companies around the world. It is one of the market's most popular accounting solutions.

There are various cloud-based accounting systems in the market but what sets Xero apart is that it’s designed for small businesses to make their accounting easier.

Let us look at its striking features:

Easy to use

The most prominent feature of accounting software is that it is user-friendly. Many Xero users have noticed that Xero is straightforward to use and in-depth accounting experience is not required. It is easy to understand all terminologies in Xero, and there are plenty of options for downloading files and supporting documents for simple transactions.

Shareability & Accessibility

Xero allows you to share your financial records online. You can do this right from the interface of the software. Your colleagues and peers will be able to view your records as well as any financial information that they may require. Xero is accessible as a cloud-based application on any computer that has an internet connection, whether operating from home or remotely.

Currency conversion and bank feeds

Xero has an automated currency convertor inbuilt so that if your bills from different currencies are automatically converted into your currency. Furthermore, it also allows automating bank feeds to save you from manually downloading statements.

Easy to integrate

A great feature of Xero is its integration capabilities. It can easily be integrated with other programs such as payroll applications. This makes it a preferred choice amongst small businesses.

The pricing

When it comes to accounting tools, Xero has some of the finest deals on offer. Their framework contains sets of Early, Growing and Established that give you a range of options. The three-tier price structure outlay is as follows.

Early plan:

• Price 11 USD
• Ideal for freelancers, solo businesses and start-ups
• Allows sending 20 invoices and quotes
• Can enter 5 bills
• Reconcile bank statements
• Hubdoc for capturing bills and reports

Growing plan:

• Price 32 USD
• Ideal for growing businesses
• Allows sending invoices and quotes
• Enter bills
• Reconcile bank statements
• Hubdoc for capturing bills and reports

Established plan:

• Price 62 USD
• Ideal for established businesses of all sizes
• Allows sending 20 invoices and quotes
• Can enter 5 bills
• Reconcile bank statements
• Hubdoc for capturing bills and reports
• Use multiple currencies
• Track projects
• Claim expenses

To conclude, investing in Xero is truly beneficial for small to medium businesses for accounting purposes.

Accounting is usually a very significant component of any organization. For the effectiveness of every organization, keeping reliable and up-to-date financial reports is critical. 

Today, outsourcing accounting is gaining popularity. This is because business owners have realized that it can help them save a lot of money, resources, time and also increase their productivity. Below are some of the benefits of outsourcing accounting.

Reasons to outsource accounting

Reduce cost

One of the major reasons for outsourcing accounting is that it eliminates administrative costs. Since the tasks are handled by professionals with a lot of knowledge about accounting, the whole process will be less stressful. In addition to that, it gives the employees a free mind since they no longer have to think about filing reports or coming up with an accounting system report. Thus, business owners who hire accountants for their companies can really cut down on expenses.

Productivity

Another reason for outsourcing accounting is that it reduces the stress that the employees feel. As a business owner, you no longer have to deal with your employees' performance. As a matter of fact, they will be working on the project that was assigned to them. Therefore, they will not be burdened with too much work that they cannot handle.

No need for resources

Aside from that, an entrepreneur will be able to save more resources for his company. Because accounting works may take a lot of time, it consumes too much of the company's resources. By outsourcing, you will be able to cut down on the expenses that will be needed for the accountants to work on the task.

Reducing mistakes and theft

Every month, it is necessary to review financial reports to identify fraud and errors. Settlement of financial statements is a difficult process, but it is equally important. As a standard, financial statements to establish integrity and identify fraud can be submitted to an outsourcing company.

Scalability

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over time can grow larger. It can happen at times that accounting work is too much for the existing accounting staff to do at a point in time. Another accounting firm could well be employed to outsource excess jobs at those periods.

To conclude, there are many firms that offer outsourcing services. Make sure that you look into their services and the quality of the work that they are offering.

Accounts receivable are legally binding claims for unpaid payments held by an organization for products or services rendered that customers have ordered yet are not paid for. 

Accounts receivable normally include the date of purchase or order and the amount owed, if a customer is delaying the payment or not paying at all, the date when the payments will be due, and the invoice number and amount for these payments. The balance owed is also charged on the outstanding balance of the account.

Accounts receivable represents the difference between the cash balances and the accounts payable balance of the company. With many receivables on a daily basis, it is easy to lose sight of the "big picture."

Here are a few ways to better ensure the payment is received in the most successful manner possible.

Emailing invoices

It is a way to ensure invoices are not destroyed. It is therefore easier to seek assurance that the member is receiving the invoice and that they plan to process it.

Review accounts receivable

Each accounting system is capable of monitoring receivable accounts at least on a weekly basis, paying particular attention to accounts over 30 days. Those reaching their due date or past due should be given reminders.

Payment conditions

In the past, due to postal delays or document delivery processes, it was more typical to allow for a prolonged period of time for payments to be processed. It is more common to see "Payment due upon receipt" on invoices because of the electronic efficiencies that we see today. In other words, payment terms should be kept clear and short.

Electronic payments

Electronic payment modes are becoming more commonly accepted and electronic transfers are made simpler than ever by services such as PayPal. Be sure you know how the participants prefer to pay so that you can change the standards of how long it will take for the payment to come through. These can also help judge how much it is appropriate to submit follow-up correspondence.

Credit policies

Acknowledging the customer's potential to purchase is necessary for preserving current accounts receivable. Before extending the credit, begin by giving them limited sums of credit or checking references. You may even simplify the billing terms to be sure that it is expressed clearly along with the processing of the invoice.

Managing accounts receivable can be simple & straightforward when maintained consistently.