Six ways automating your bookkeeping will benefit your business

Josh Smithurst, cloud accounting expert at Page Kirk, outlines the gains that can be made from embracing technology when managing your books.

In an ever-changing world, there has never been a more important time to evolve and embrace new technologies. Not only to improve your business, but also to free up more of your time to spend on yourself. In fact, there are a number of ways in which automated bookkeeping can make an impact.

Time saving

One of the biggest attractions of automating your books is that you can reduce the time you spend undertaking data entry. It is no surprise to business owners that keeping your books manually can easily eat away at a good proportion of your evenings and weekends. This should be time spent enjoying hobbies or with family and friends. It has been found that individuals who automate their invoice entry and accounts payable processes can save on average up to an hour per day.

More effective reporting

With the introduction of some automation features across your accounting software, your bookkeeping takes less time to bring itself up to date. The data that has been processed can therefore be used more effectively. With more real-tie accuracy, it will produce the information you need to make meaningful business decisions.

With the use of Spotlight Reporting, you are able to compile tailored management account reports that are unique for your business and industry, which can be used to set budgets for the future. They can keep your business on track to meet its goals in both the short and long term. You can also use the forecasting function, which can act as a guide to what you need to be billing and saving to reach your goals.

Did you know that, on average, businesses that adopt cloud-based accounting have a 15% year-on- year growth in revenue? This is made possible because of the time saved by going digital.

Credit control

Thirdly, we take a look at arguably the key component of keeping a business in business, which is the company's credit control function. With an up-to-date set of books, you will always know at a click of a button what debts are outstanding and, more importantly, which debtor owes you. With the tools from a company like Satago, a lot of the manual tasks of chasing debtors – including sending out reminder emails and regular statements – can be programmed to be sent out to individual customers at any chosen time. If done in the right way, all this extra communication with your customers could see your relationships go from strength to strength as rapport grows.

Reviewing your systems and processes

With more free time on your hands from all the automation of your internal systems, you will be able to review your systems and controls to ensure that they are running as they should be and that you are maximising profitability.

This is a crucial part of growing your business, being able to review the systems that are already in place and improving them. More often than not, they will have been in existence for a long period of time and will have been sufficient for your needs. However, with technology changing all the time, these systems may potentially become outdated without you even realising it. A recent survey stated that 60% of businesses are not happy with their current accounting and finance processes. If this is you, or if you would like to know if your current processes could be more automated and modernised, then please get in touch to discuss the options further.

Reduced human errors

With the majority of data-entry tasks being automated, you drastically reduce the risk of manual error. This is because there is less human interaction with the raw data being inputted into the accounting software. As most errors are manual, this alone is a good justification for automation.

Data is more secure

Finally, your data is more secure when all of your accounting information is automated and stored digitally. You are less at risk of losing your confidential information or having it stolen. The security behind most cloud storage owned by your various software providers is going to be far more secure than the backup you used to keep on a USB stick in your top drawer under your desk.

In conclusion, these are just some of the benefits to investing in the automation of your bookkeeping processes. As you can see, if you start with the basic processes, the knock-on effect will be very beneficial for you and your business. If you would like to find out more about this, please get in touch now by calling us on 0115 955 5500 or emailing enquiries@pagekirk.co.uk.