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Although you might come across many challenges to choose the best accounting software, always remember the opportunities are many. You need to have a good accounting system if you intend to gain control over the financial affairs of your organization. With optimum control, real-time access and precise reports decision-making capabilities are enhanced resulting in improved cash flow and overall business growth.
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OneAccounting Software Guide For Choosing Best Accounting Software For Your Organization
Although you might come across many challenges to choose the best accounting software, always remember the opportunities are many. You need to have a good accounting system if you intend to gain control over the financial affairs of your organization. With optimum control, real-time access and precise reports decision-making capabilities are enhanced resulting in improved cash flow and overall business growth. Although starting a business is a great achievement in life, finding a perfect accounting software meeting your individual business needs is the most critical decision you will take. We know; how hard it is, to select the accounting software that will justify the expectations and needs of your business. We understand “Great information leads to making a great decision”. This is why OneAccounting is undertaking an initiative to guide business owners in selecting the best accounting software. This way, it also provides us with the opportunity to introduce our own accounting software living up to the worst and strongest selection criteria.
Reasons to Invest in Quality Accounting Software
You should opt for a comprehensive accounting system that will accommodate your business growth, including employees and clients.
Most of the old accounting systems are designed to carry loads up to a certain limit. With a growing business, it is necessary to have software that grows with your company growth.
To survive the competition and to withstand the modern technology, it is imperative to change the style and structure of your business, which eventually calls for changing your account system.
If you are still relying on spreadsheets or entry level accounting software, then it is sure that they will never meet your expectations, as they are prone to commit mistakes.
For years, the company has been using the same system by customizing and upgrading it. Still, there are many businesses out there sticking to the old accounting systems. Such business
entities either get used to the systems or are afraid to use the systems of which they are least aware. Apart from fear, resources, investment and time required to understand and actually use the system are also few considerations forcing businesses withdraw from switching due to diligent accounting software.
However, when success and earned reputation of your business are at stake, consider this the most appropriate moment to make the switch. We often read or speak about how much it is important for the software to meet your expectations. The fact is, your business should be the one and your personal expertise is the second thing that needs to fit perfectly with the modern accounting software.
What should you expect from Good Accounting Software?
If software is installed properly and used to its fullest potential, good accounting software has the ability to deliver numerous benefits to its customers, Let us have a look at it,
Enhances Decision Making capability: Accounting software developed with elaborate features and having the inbuilt capability to integrate with the third party software is actually a priced possession for your organization. The ability to fetch real-time data and generate snapshots in real-time provide precise reports and figures that further enhances decision-making capabilities of the organization.
Enhanced Cash Flow: Cash flow is one of the important and necessary aspects of the business. Good accounting software as if OneAccounting has integrated billing, inventory, accounts receivables and accounts payable making it further easier to manage and track cash flow of your organization with added ease and efficiency. Better management and control over cash flow in your organization empowers the business entity to find different options to generate revenue and achieve desired growth.
Enhanced Accuracy in Information: One of the best perks of using fully integrated accounting software is the quick availability of information that is precise and accurate at a time. Usually, you have to waste a lot of time in cross checking and analyzing different ledger and account book entries when you are manually updating or managing your accounts. Often manual accounting is prone to mistakes and errors that might trigger potential damage to the organization’s reputation. A fully automated accounting provides easy user interface where you have to enter a value only for once and the same will be utilized by different fractions of the software, overcoming even the smallest possibility of errors.
Enhanced Control: After integrating the accounting software with other third party software’s like payroll, inventory, claim processing, etc., you are entitled to get real-time reports. All the critical financial information of your organization is made available to you in real-time with the click of a button. The real-time access offers you greater control and effective management over different business departments.
Right Accounting Software Serves as Stepping Stone for Your Business Growth
A right accounting software helps organizations in every possible way, accommodating the growth of a business, the software also improves its productivity and efficiency to meet growing expectations of the organization. Easily adjusts increasing user base within the organization and providing the crucial and intelligent business data in real-time eventually leads the business on the path to success and growth. Timely updates, regular upgrades, and better customer support are some of the USPs of good accounting software.
Six Proven Strategies for Successfully Choosing the Best Accounting Software
Although you might come across many challenges to choose the best accounting software, always remember the opportunities are many. You need to have a good accounting system if you intend to gain control over the financial affairs of your organization. With optimum control, real-time access and precise reports decision-making capabilities are enhanced resulting in improved cash flow and overall business growth.
After much study and research, we concluded that, implementing and thoughtfully following the below mentioned six strategies will help you in finding the best accounting software.
Strategy#1
The accounting system is never an asset of a single department or is never limited to a set of specialized users. When different people from different departments are going to use the same software for different purposes, it makes sense to involve the right people from different departments in the process. Due to the involvement of different people, it will be easier for you in collaborating the overall expectations you desire to find in a possible financial software solution. Make sure to involve people from at least five departments in the selection process.
Actual users of the software: These people are going to use the software on a daily basis. These people will help you ensure whether the software is user-friendly or not. In addition to that, they will also help in analyzing the logicalness and efficiency of the software for your organization.
Managers supervising the users: As managers are going to supervise the users, they will help in analyzing the efficiency of the software in generating reports that are often required by the top management. In addition to that, managers are also aware of using the system to its fullest potential so they will be guiding the users to use the system effectively and increase the ROI.
Ensure to Involve Right People from Different Departments:
Customers of the system: In almost every corner of the organization, you will come across system customers in need of financial information. These people are in need of the reports and information generated by the system to take speculative decisions to manage the work of their department. Although these people are not fully aware of the fundamentals of accounting software, but they do help in offering valuable insight into the kind of information and data they require or they expect from accounting software.
People from In-house Technical Department: These people play an important role in analyzing the installation, maintenance and up gradation issues. Involving people from an IT department is must as maintaining and managing software is almost their responsibility. People signing off the System: More often, these people are related to the Information Technology or Information System department or from the executive management team bestowed with authorities to approve the shortlisted system. Sometimes the CEO plays an important role in selecting the system with the mutual consent or involves prominent designators for final approval.
Strategy#2
Having appropriate knowledge of weakness and the limitations of your financial information in your business model plays an important role in selecting the best accounting software. The more you are aware of the challenges you need to meet through accounting software the more informed decision you will make. If you are not aware of these things, then there are some questions, you need to ask yourselves to understand the weakness and flaws in your business system.
To analyze the problems, your organization is facing and to understand the challenges faced by your business try to find out answers to these questions
What manual tasks will be benefited by automating the accounting system? Which is the accounting cycle, you often find errors leading to a loss of productivity? How the issues in your accounting system negatively impact your organization’s growth? Which type of information, data or reports are not created or delivered by your existing
system? How the new accounting system will integrate with your current business management
solution?
Analyze and Resolve the Challenges:
Please understand, these are not the only questions, in fact, add these few questions on the list you will be preparing. Compile as many questions as you can and understand them for getting better insight of problems and issues faced by your business or issues arising due to the current accounting system.
Generally, all businesses in one or the other way have similar accounting needs. Therefore, here are a few pointers that will help you prioritize your accounting system
Word Processing and Spreadsheet General Ledger Billing / Accounts Receivables Accounts Payable Inventory Sales Order Purchase Order Payroll / Human Resource Job Cost / Manufacturing Custom Management Reports
The Best Way to Prioritize Your Accounting System
This list is not necessarily applicable to all the businesses as different organizations have different priorities. When start-ups want General Ledger at the top, established companies prioritize it at the bottom. Information management is most vital and necessary aspect of many organizations; such businesses prioritize spreadsheets, custom reports, and sales / purchase orders. The information thus received helps a great deal in forecasting and planning or in decision-making for the future course of the business.
Strategy#3
If you are lucky enough, you will find an in-house expertise ready to install and implement your new accounting system. However, not many organizations have the time, resources, or expertise ready to devote his/her efforts in analyzing, purchasing, installing and maintaining the system. The only person that can help you in such matter is a software consultant. Usually, a software consultant has a wide array of experience and expertise in purchasing and installing systems. Although you will have to pay for the services rendered by a software consultant, they are beneficial for your organization in many ways. First, they help in analyzing and evaluating the best accounting software for your organization, and then they save valuable time by installing and offering subsequent training to the employees. Lastly, they help users to understand how to gain maximum efficiency from the system by understanding its capabilities and requirements of the organization. The best thing, genuine and acclaimed consultants often turn out to be accounting software re-sellers. In the modern world, most of the accounting software as well another software product is purchased through re-sellers. By purchasing software from re-sellers, it is ensured that these consultants will focus on providing complete automated accounting solutions for your business. The service and support they are providing, in the long run, is always exceptional, as they want to be a part of organizational growth and continue serving your increased business needs in the future.
Hiring Consultant Is a Good Idea
It is not hard to find a software consultant in your organizations proximity. Taking a hint or recommendation from your own IT department or asking colleagues and employees is the first step. If you want to find a consultant on your own, try attending some accounting seminars, go through the accounting publications or speak with the business analyst in your domain.
How and Where to Find the Consultant
To segregate the best consultant amongst the crowd, prefer a consultant that has previously installed and is still offering services to the organizations bearing a resemblance in size and scope as of your business. Get to know, the number of and type of organization consultant has served in the past. If possible, crosscheck them and do not hesitate to ask the concerned person about the kind of experience they have with the particular software consultant. In order to check the relevancy and the genuineness of the consultant, ask them a few questions
Is he willing to provide references? – Usually, a genuine reseller or consultant is proud to hand over the list of his/her clientele.
What kind of relation reseller has with the clients? – Call at least one or two random clients and by providing reference do understand the kind of working relationship reseller has with the clients.
How to Judge the Consultant
Is the Consultant ready to offer complete service package? – Some of the important aspects of hiring consultants are software training, technical support, maintenance and timely Ensure that the consultant or reseller, you are dealing with is ready for immediate installation and is willing to provide all the services mentioned above.
Has the consultant heard you properly? – You might think this question is inappropriate. However, a consultant who is a good listener is always a better reseller. By understanding your requirements, by noting the missing functions in the current system and by picking the exact needs of your organization a good consultant will refer the best accounting software for your organization.
Is the Consultant Seller or Advisor? – Stay away from the consultants praising products they are selling. Such consultants will speak only about what features you will be getting into the accounting software they are selling. Stay away from such marketing geeks and concentrate on the consultants that are offering software’s by communicating the actual benefits and productivity certain software will bring to your organization.
Strategy#4
Every business has a secret and accounting software industry is no different. Remember, it does not matter how expensive or how elaborate an accounting software is, the truth is most of the accounting software’s available on the market in one or the other way perform the same function. The only difference between them is the way in which they perform these functions. After revealing the secret, confusion prevails, as you might think that you will never be wrong in choosing the accounting software. Do not get this misconception, because there are substantial differences amongst different accounting software. Depending on the company, that develops accounting software and a specific way in which it delivers information helps a great deal in distinguishing good software from the rest. Here is a list of several key components that you have to evaluate for scaling productivity and efficiency of an accounting software.
You Need to Evaluate the Application Performance of the Software:
Do you know the company that has developed the accounting software? Is the company name familiar and reputed in the market? For how long they have been in the business, what vision they have for the future. These are just few doubts that should come into your mind when you want to invest in accounting software that is going to take charge of financial data of your organization. For sure, no one likes to deal with the company having no future course, think about that.
What Company Has Developed the Accounting Software?
Initially, you might think, Scalability is a fancy word for purchasing accounting software. However, determining if the software grows with the growth of your company is very much necessary.
Usually, scalability of a software product is based on two important concepts.
First is scaling up – determining if the software you are investing into, extends its support to a group of products or third party software’s your organization will be requiring in the future. Second is scaling out -- ensuring the software vendor offers cost-effective up gradation, that too in a logical and easy way.
To understand the compatibility of software to scaling up and scaling out ask these questions
Is the software customizable? Will it convert the existing data into newer version easily and seamlessly? Is there a possibility of change in the interface due to regular upgrades? Are there any price incentives for loyal customers who want to upgrade in future? Will the old features remain same with the similar interface? Will it offer optional modules apart from the core modules? Is the software offering seamless integration with third party software?
How Scalable Is the Product as Comprehensive Accounting Software
Software like OneAccounting is developed in cloud technology, requiring no installation on the client side. This helps in saving a lot of amounts, as you do not have to invest in additional hardware and rely on on-site maintenance and support. In addition to that, you receive guaranteed safety of your critical financial data and you get the liberty to access your software and data from anywhere and at any time.
If you are interested in client-server based accounting software, then understand the time needed for standard installation and what are the factors affecting the speed of installation. Besides, getting a fair idea of the additional investment you will have to make in terms of hardware, software, service and support, eventually helps you in deciding the best software for your organization.
What Are The Options and Traits For Installation?
Already you are aware, business, in general, is a tough task. In a short time, you realize accounting is critical and complex. Therefore, as a solid entrepreneur, look out for an accounting system that is logical, efficient and easy to use. Here are a few questions that you need to consider to understand the usability of the accounting software.
Is the software interface, easy-to-use with primary screens displaying the entered data? Is it easy to navigate between different modules of the software? Is there any need for pre-use training for operating the software? Do they provide online support and service?
Is the User Interface, Easy or Hard?
This is in reference to the maximum capacity of the software limiting its characteristics. Understand the maximum number of investors, clients, inventories, customers and users it can handle at one time. Analyze how flexible it is in terms of including line items in sales or purchase orders and in invoices.
Is the Software Capacitative To Accommodate Your Needs?
Every organization has different requirements for financial reporting. Understand if the software offers the customized reports, your organization frequently needs. Additionally, also analyze ease it provides and the time required to generate as well create those reports.
What Reporting Capabilities Does The Software Offer?
A good accounting system offers ease of entering and updating information. Full-screen editing, embedded help clear prompts and dashboard notifications are some of the essential features. Remember; always prefer a system that does not need an excessive use of the mouse as it saves time and energy.
Does it Offer Relative Ease in Entering Data?
Ensure that the accounting system you prefer should be able to prevent errors and mistakes before they are entered into the system. Checking for duplicate customers, vendors, incorrect item numbers as well date and amount entries and the rectifying mistakes in them to avoid future blunders.
What Data Validating Options It Provides?
Although, the software is a program, operators that will be using it are humans. Humans commit mistakes. It is good if the software is programmed to handle the man made mistakes in preventing unbalanced transactions. Besides, it will be good if the wrongly used Delete command prevents the loss of data stored in the system by providing a trail of errors for tracking who makes what changes.
Is it integrated With Sufficient Error Handling Capabilities?
For any organization, protecting the sensitive information and functions of the accounting program is very much necessary. Password protecting the features for controlling what functions can be seen by whom and used by which person is an integral component of system security. The software should be designed to offer maximum control over its features and access, restricting any malpractices within the organization.
What Security Provisions Are Embedded?
Strategy#5
Until now, you have involved people from various departments, analyzed challenges in front of your organization and you have hired a consultant to guide and purchase accounting software for your organization. Having evaluated, tested and understood the performance of software now it is time to choose the software vendor. Please understand when you are selecting a specific accounting software you are also vowing for the company designed and developed that software.
Here are some of the tips that will help you chose the best software vendor,
The Vendor Should Have a Large Customer Base: Ensure how many companies within your proximity are using the software and get to know how many re-sellers the company has appointed. When a large number of customers are using the software, then surely the performance and productivity of the software is great. Remember, when people and organizations are bestowing their faith in the particular company, consider the company must be offering unmatched services and best support.
In addition to that, third party software developers are willing to offer their applications and add-ons that are compatible with the software further increasing the efficiency and productivity of the software.
It is Time To Choose The Software Vendor
Software Provider Should Offer Regular Updates Without Downtime: Sign of good cloud-based accounting software is it is updated on regular basis in the background without affecting the performance and compatibility of the software. The regular updates help in bug fixing and resolving issues. Ensure that the vendor has a guided policy regarding updates and makes those updates available to its existing customers without a price tag.
The Company Should Have A Record to Embrace Changing Technology: Software Company that invests efforts and intelligence in developing a better and all advanced product features in accordance with the changing technology is always dependable.
Even a small upgrade in the system improvises user experience due to enhanced product. These upgrades provide an opportunity to the organization in accommodating its growth and changing needs. Depending on the service agreement, these upgrades will either cost you a fraction or will be provided as a complimentary service. Therefore, give due importance to the small print on the service agreement.
The Vendor Should Have Good Support Team: You never know when a certain issue will arise in the software. Although minor the users can resolve minor issues, you need to have a technical support in case a major issue arises in your system. Ensure the vendor has a good number of experienced people in the technical support team and has a quick turn-around time to resolve your queries immediately.
Strategy#6
It’s all done now; you have selected the product, chose the vendor and purchased the software. What are you waiting for…Browse the system!
Since the accounting system you have purchased is cloud-based, there are no any software licenses, hardware installations and additional services to purchase. The cloud-based accounting system is made available to you via single monthly subscription and by discounted half yearly or yearly subscription. This subscription includes software, infrastructure and management services. All the features and modules your organization requested are delivered to you via internet.
A user ID and password are provided to you, upon purchasing the software. Just visit the URL of the vendor from any browser on your computer or laptop. Upon prompting provide the user ID and password as if you are accessing your email account. There you are, all your efforts have resulted in a fruitful decision.
Having logged in the system, do not rush to customize or change the program packages as per your needs. First, navigate the system, understand each module, and check out what you wanted and what is missing. Having fully analyzed and understood how the system works ask your employees to do the same and then work on customizing the system to make it suitable for your organization.
Finally, It’s Time to Implement The Accounting System
Plan for reviewing and evaluating the system at regular intervals, based on preset criteria. This will allow you to understand the flaws and requirement of new features in the system. Go on adding features and modules as per your needs and ensure to utilize the software to its fullest potential. Now on, stay abreast with your organization’s financial status from anywhere in the world and access the system at any time retrieving any data you want at any place.
OneAccounting is a subsidiary of SBS Group, Singapore. SBS Group is involved in offering many end-to-end corporate solutions small, medium and large business organizations in Singapore. With the incorporation of OneAccounting Software, SBS Group has ventured into the business of providing management solutions and accounting related applications to help organizations enhance their competitive advantage.
With an aim to provide dependable and cost effective software solutions to the business organizations, OneAccounting is taking advantage of the new technology to meet the unique requirements of organizations like you. Try our cloud-based accounting software that delivers high performance, advanced functionality, third party integration and unbeatable choice of freedom. OneAccounting will deliver the software model that will work for your business model today, tomorrow and forever. The ability to upgrade and modify features in your software to meet your increasing business demands means a fair and true value for your investment. Invest in OneAccounting Software now, and experience the investment that stands the test of time.
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