Instant Bookkeeping: Organize and Automate Your System

This article is sponsored by FreshBooks, a proud supporter of OfficeArrow and the leader in online invoicing and bookkeeping.

The amount of time your company spends on bookkeeping is time that might be better spent on other parts of the business. Sure, bookkeeping is important. After all, if you don't invoice your clients, you may not get paid. But, did you know that it can actually be automated to the point that keeping your books up-to-date is a matter of minutes rather than hours?

The Organizational System

Simplifying your ledgers is a necessary component of simplifying the entire bookkeeping process and how you do it depends on the organizational system you use to manage your business' funds. There are certain characteristics that such a system must have. For example, your accountant must be able to easily interpret your books for tax time and other accounting purposes. Your system must also be easy to update; you should be able to simply add information and the system should be able to generate reports, invoices and the rest of the paperwork necessary for the bookkeeping process.

Unified Bookkeeping

For a system that can automate at least some of a bookkeeper's work, it's crucial to use a software package built with bookkeeping in mind. All too often, office professionals depend on Microsoft Word or Excel to create invoices and track billing - functions for which these programs were not intended. With no collaborative capabilities and no automation to speak of, Word and Excel create a disjointed and ineffective bookkeeping system.

While many desktop applications, such as QuickBooks, offer robust bookkeeping systems, they can be, at times, almost too powerful. Different versions offer different levels of accounting capabilities, much of which can be overwhelming and time consuming to learn.

A web-based application allows for a more unified and simple approach to daily bookkeeping. With a tool like FreshBooks, any member of your organization - as well as external accountants and bookkeepers - can update the books, as long as they have the required security information. This allows the person who is working with a specific client to update an invoice without having to track down the bookkeeper first. Additionally, all of the information about your company's financial state is housed in one place, and everyone involved is using the same format for such tasks as billing and invoicing.

Even complicated expenses can be made simple with the right tool. If, for instance, you pay contractors for expenses that are then billed to your clients, having an application that can handle that task can make at least that part of your invoicing process virtually instantaneous. Even if you have multiple members of your business adding new expenses, you can see your cash flow at a glance and determine if you need to adjust anything. You don't even need to synchronize multiple versions of your books.

Finding the Right System

Choosing and setting up a system that best fits your company may require an investment of time, but it will pay off in the long run. You want to use a system that covers all of your requirements, rather than just a few. With a system like FreshBooks - meant primarily for smaller service providers and freelancers - you may find that it covers 90 percent of your bookkeeping needs. Many businesses find FreshBooks complimentary software to QuickBooks. Such a combination allows you to use a flexible, fast bookkeeping system and only pull out the heavy-duty software when you actually need it. Plus, FreshBooks makes exporting data to QuickBooks (or many other accounting packages) super-simple.

In your day-to-day business routine, you need to be able to quickly record transactions and turn that information into bills and invoices. Beyond that sort of input, your bookkeeping processes should be fairly automatic, with your software doing the heavy lifting while you focus on using the information to make decisions about your business.

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