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5 companies that need bookkeeping automation

5 companies that need bookkeeping automation

Author
Michael Davis
Contributing writer, BILL
Author
Michael Davis
Contributing writer, BILL
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Welcome to the age of effortless bookkeeping.

That’s right—the days of chasing down approvals, printing checks, stuffing envelopes, and entering data are done. And, in place of the “old school” way, comes bookkeeping automation.

Bookkeeping Automation: Where paper checks become digital payments like ACH transfers, EFTs, and credit card transactions. Where scrambling around the office searching for people or documents transforms into online, automated workflows. Where hours spent creating and mailing invoices reduce dramatically in favor of cloud-based creation and delivery.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, think again. A simple, efficient solution is at your fingertips. And you only have to answer one question—does your business really need bookkeeping automation?

If you’re a nonprofit organization, you’ll love its audit capabilities.

Nonprofits have a mission. Whatever that mission is, it’s the priority. In order to retain their status as a nonprofit, they often endure regular audits. After all, the government has to ensure they are operating in compliance with non-profit regulations.

If you saw the word audit and cringed, we completely understand. The word invokes the image of a conference room drowning in boxes and papers. Audits can mean days or weeks spent gathering documents, check stubs, and more. It’s an administrative, time-consuming pain to track down this mountain of paper information.

Bookkeeping automation simplifies auditing to an absurd degree.

Take this example. An auditor wants to view vendor payment transactions for a particular time frame. All the auditor needs is a login. That’s right—an audit-level authorization from you. This lets them get the information they need without the agonizing paper hunt.

With bookkeeping automation, all financial transactions—accounts payable, accounts receivable—take place in the cloud. Each payment is tracked, creating a perfect, automatic audit trail. Each ACH transfer, EFT, and credit card transaction comes complete with an entire record of the review and approval process.

So, when the auditor comes in, all the administrator needs to do is give them audit-level access to the system. With just a few clicks, they can have all the documentation they need to finish an audit from start to finish.

If you’re a decentralized or virtual business, you’ll love its mobility.

Most businesses hold decentralized office spaces these days.

Traditionally, SMBs would grow in a particular geographic area and spread from there. Now, they have the luxury of adding talent no matter where they are located. As a result, you may be in Chicago, your CFO may be in St. Louis, and your VP of sales in Austin. Each of the team members that need to review and/or approve bills may be in separate cities or home offices.

With bookkeeping automation, all bill payments and invoicing can be coordinated and accessed via a mobile app. So Tom in Taiwan can review a bill or outgoing invoice as easily as Lily in Los Vegas. All they need is authorization and a smartphone or tablet.

Property managers love its ability to accept and track a massive amount of online payments.

Most property management companies still wade through a paper check mess, especially if they have a lot of properties and tenants. They often track the entire process through items such as spreadsheets or software that can’t quite handle the task. But the result skews to inaccuracies, inefficiencies, and sacrificed productivity. Imagine having to accept and track rent payments for hundreds of properties across time periods that can span days, months, or years. Headache inducing.

Plus, tenants hate the paper check shuffle. Write the check. Mail the check (or worse, have to drop it off in person.)

Let’s re-visualize the process with bookkeeping automation:

  • Tenants have a dedicated, secure online payment portal they visit each month to pay rent online.
  • They visit it.
  • They pay via ACH, EFT or credit card
  • Digital payments funnel directly into the bookkeeping automation system, attaching to the appropriate properties, owners, and invoices.
  • The property management company has a dashboard which shows all received and outstanding payments.

Bookkeeping automation also makes it much easier for property managers to pay for services such as repairs and landscaping. The invoice is reviewed online, transverses the entire approval process, and then each vendor is paid digitally after final authorization.

If your company works with contractors, you’ll love its online and streamlined AP.

The working world has morphed into the gig economy. More and more Americans now choose to work with a variety of companies in the capacity as a contractor or freelancer.

The business benefits of working with contractors are endless. You get great talent without the overhead of employee-related costs. But organizing payments on a regular basis for contractors eats up the hours for businesses with limited accounting resources. After all, they can bill in many different manners—down payments, per project, fixed fee over a time span, quarterly based on progress, etc.

Bookkeeping automation allows you to pay contractors digitally and organize and track all payments. Contractors submit invoices online. Each invoice automatically runs through a review and approval process based on company guidelines. Digital payments are authorized and tracked in the system, as well as documents such as contracts and past invoices. In short, you’re streamlining an unwieldy process and doing it without adding additional people to handle it. In fact, you’re probably decreasing the time.

ANY company will appreciate the efficiency and savings offered by bookkeeping automation.

Bookkeeping automation eliminates all the manual activities associated with AP and AR. No one needs to pass paper around or track down check signers. No more bank runs are needed. All the important components of bookkeeping—including contracts, invoices, and payments—are moved online and in the cloud. You can save money, increase efficiency, and reallocate time to more productive activities.

Ready to begin?

Author
Michael Davis
Contributing writer, BILL
Michael specializes in helping businesses optimize financial operations by staying up-to-date with industry trends and translating insights into real-world applications. With expertise in AP, cash flow, and fintech, Michael breaks down complex topics to help businesses continue to grow.
Author
Michael Davis
Contributing writer, BILL
Michael specializes in helping businesses optimize financial operations by staying up-to-date with industry trends and translating insights into real-world applications. With expertise in AP, cash flow, and fintech, Michael breaks down complex topics to help businesses continue to grow.
The information provided on this page does not, and is not intended to constitute legal or financial advice and is for general informational purposes only. The content is provided "as-is"; no representations are made that the content is error free.