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Giddh, May 19, 2020

10 Features of Online Accounting Software that Lead to Business Growth

With the advent of technology, almost every aspect of business has evolved drastically. Machines and systems have taken over much of the work, that had to be done manually. This has led to greater ease and efficiency. Add to that, the innumerable capabilities technology has brought to the fore, which were not humanly possible.

Are you running an online business or planning to set up one? If yes, make sure you’re taking into consideration the prospect of installing a proper online accounting software to manage your business operations. With online accounting tools, you can easily track your finances and monitor your financial statements to understand whether your business is earning profits or is going down the hill.

With the advancement of technology and automation, we have seen a considerable rise in cloud accounting in India. Most Indian firms are putting in their faith in such online accounting software to manage their basic financial reports such as income statements, balance sheets, etc. and help other business owners, investors, creditors to track financial gains or losses.

The one aspect of business that has been changed much due to machine automation is accounting. The traditional image of accounting brings to mind the picture of a middle aged guy, with spectacles loosely placed over his nose, going through tonnes of papers, and making notes manually, just to make sure every entry is recorded and verified. Well, in the space of a few decades, that guy has been replaced by tech savvy, keyboard slaying youngsters who can feed and analyze data worth of a million pieces of paper in seconds, and present them in easily comprehensible form, at their fingertips.

However, blindly choosing your accounting tools can end up creating more problems than solutions. Therefore, it is imperative that you evaluate your accounting software, before you entrust it with valuable financial information, related to your business. Your accounting software must also have the right accounting features that can assist you in making those crucial business decisions.

What is Accounting Software?

Accounting software helps you assess the financial status of your organization by recording and processing the transactions occurring within modules like a ledger, account payables/receivables, payroll, stock management, and billing. Depending on the requirements, you can either custom-design your software or purchase it from a third-party.

Why should you use accounting software for your business?

Taking your accounting online with the help of a solution like Giddh will help your company save time and also prevent errors in the long run. The main advantage that comes with using the features of accounting software is efficiency. Instead of having numerous spreadsheets that require consistent copying and pasting data, you will have all your transactions in one location. You will be able to see what comes into play for your business, the expenses, and where to find your information.

Rather than manually entering data and transactions, look for accounting features like bank integration which will connect the software to your business bank accounts. Once this is in place, you can easily monitor your transactions from a single window. Mostly, accounting applications will have a dashboard such as the one provided by Giddh, that provides real-time data, along with crucial metrics.

You can use relevant features of accounting software to segregate expenses, as well as schedule and pay bills. You get to decide if you want to pay them online, by check, a credit card, or cash. This will help you monitor transactions and effectively manage the cash flow as well. With the help of useful accounting software features, you will be able to automate tedious and time-consuming accounting tasks. This will enhance the accuracy of data and productivity; it will also help keep your bookkeeping process efficient. Another significant benefit of accounting online is that you can do this from any location that has a stable internet connection.

Evaluate all the accounting system features carefully and then make a choice to ensure it assists you in making those crucial business decisions. However, there are times when despite evaluating all the features, you still get confused.In case, you too are feeling the pangs of confusion, it’s time to check out this blog post to learn different features of accounting software like Giddh and understand how can it streamline your entire business accounting with a few clicks:

Giddh Accounting Software Features List: A Quick Overview

With Giddh at your side, you can easily say goodbye to complicated software and manage all your business needs with a simple accounting solution. As cloud-based software, Giddh offers you the following benefits:

Here are a few ways, in which the right accounting software can help you in your business’ growth:

Accuracy of information

The importance of accurate data keeping can never be overstated, especially when the data is financial in nature. Humans are prone to errors, be it in calculation, or transfer of information from one account to another. Good accounting software can eliminate those errors, making sure that the records are correct and coherent. It saves a lot of man hours that go into tallying and error correction.

Ease of access

One very important feature that modern accounting software have started offering is that they are hosted over cloud. This means that the data is accessible, independent of where you are, or what computer you are using. All your accountant needs are his login credentials. Once that constraint is eliminated, the speed of work done multiplies.

Maintain Collaboration

To run a successful business, it’s imperative to maintain fruitful and healthy relationships with everyone, be it your vendor, distributor, or any internal employee. The right bonding and inclusion of cloud accounting software makes it easier for you to request for timely payments, locate invoices or bills, and identify if any payment was missed. These softwares allow you to collaborate with your accountant to ensure and check if all your financials are up-to-date or not to avoid compliance and tax filing issues.

Organization Becomes Easier

Another significant feature of an accounting softwarelike Giddhis that they simplify your finances and organize them properly. The simplification makes it easier for you and others to not only find out a particular transaction or data but also update and keep track of the expenses and find invoices.

Security

One of the persistent predicaments for an accountant is the fear of theft of data. With physical books, or even with data stored locally on excel, or other numeric tools, safety is always at risk. That is where modern day accounting software comes in handy. You need to carefully choose software that keeps your data encrypted, and doesn’t access it without permission. With safety of data intact, you’ll see the worry lines on your accountants’ forehead, disappear in no time.

Controlled Access & Permissions

With Giddh by your side, you get the flexibility to provide controlled access to different vendors, investors, etc. depending on which part of the financial data they are trying to access. Cloud-based software Giddh operates on the concept of a role-based model and allows you to share:

  • P&L Statements, Balance Sheet, etc.
  • Export financial reports in Excel or PDF format
  • Perform deep analysis on the report based on date, financial year, or project type

It further allows you to share the ledger with clients and the accounting department under restrictions to avoid discrepancies and unauthorized access. The ledger is shareable only for a 24-hour time frame after which it becomes inaccessible.

Multi-user and Easy Collaboration

Another unique feature of the Giddh accounting tool is that it always allows you to be on the driver’s seat. Using Giddh (a multi-user online accounting software), you can provide controlled access to different stakeholders who are trying to operate a given part of your financial data. It works on the concept of a role-based model allowing you to share:

  • P&L Statements, Balance Sheet, etc.
  • Export financial reports in Excel or PDF format
  • Perform deep analysis on the report based on date, financial year, or project type

It also lets you share your ledger with clients and the accounting team under limited visibility to minimize all discrepancies. Ledger sharing is accessible for 24-hours through a magic link, after which the shared ledger becomes inaccessible.

Reporting

We need to understand that just keeping raw data, is of no use, unless it can be translated into easily presentable, and understandable information. A good accounting software does just that. It can give you whatever information you need, in a format of your choice — graphs, pie charts, manhattans or simple tables. Uncomplicated representation of data helps managers make better analyses, resulting in swift and apt decision making.

Linkage

No business in today’s world operates on its own. There is, always, a large number stakeholders involved, from vendors and suppliers to clients, employees and even financial institutions like banks. A good accounting software will help you link the right accounts, to save you from having to make multiple entries for the same transaction. For example, if all your customers make payments to of a particular bank account, then a payment entry in the customer’s account must automatically reflect in your bank’s account as well. This not only helps you manage flow of money more accurately, it also helps you identify erroneous transactions and rectify them

Taxation:

Paying, or even keeping track, of taxes is a big headache for accountants. But this pain point can be eradicated with the use of an accounting software such as Giddh, that helps you calculate, manage and pay your taxes. In the long run, it can help you avoid penalties, and keep you in the good books of the authorities as well.

Manage Everything in One Go

In most cases, accounting software is a mix of different accounting functions which mostly allow you to perform basic billing, invoicing, and inventory management. However, the latest technological advancements have even made the accounting softwares smart, and hence if you get all these functions embedded into one system, it cuts down the time you spend on data migration between the systems.

Seamless API Integration

APIs for any software is designed to set up a powerful communication channel between two servers. They help you create a functional application or perform a quick integration. Giddh offers you a set of strong, diverse APIs that are organized around REST and all API calls must be made to https://api.giddh.com base domain.

As an online accounting tool, it uses many HTTP features and the APIs are custom-designed to have predictable URL structure and use HTTP response codes to indicate API errors. You can access APIs using the user’s authentication key – “Auth-Key” which needs to be supplied in Header with each API request.

Payroll management

Payroll management is an important feature of accounting software that involves everything from calculating the pay of employees to processing and distribution. With accounting software, these tasks can be automated so that your valuable time could be invested in something more important. The payroll functionality of the accounting software will ensure that you don’t spend too much of your resources on calculating taxes, writing cheques, or scheduling deposits. Consequently, this feature could be quite useful especially when your business is growing or your employee base is increasing. Cloud accounting software helps you keep track of billable hours and have a complete overview of salary dates and payment due dates.

Billing and invoicing

With this feature of accounting software, it is easy to create and distribute professional-looking invoices as well as carry out more advanced sales tasks. It helps your enterprise take care of a wide range of recurring transaction types including contract and subscription-based services. Billing and invoicing is an important feature to have in your accounting software because you will have a lot to manage and process when your customer base grows along with the volume and variety of sales. An important feature of computerised accounting software is automatically generating recurring invoices that saves business owners precious time and helps them focus on company growth.

Expense Management

Expense management enables you to submit, process and track all your work-related expenses. Your business can use this feature of financial accounting to customise the expense reports so that you have a holistic view of how your financial resources are being utilised. Growing businesses have growing expenses as well. Accounting software will give you a way to track these ever-increasing expenses. Besides, it will also offer a detailed analysis of the expenses which can be used to discover any investment and cost savings opportunities.

Integrated APIs for Better Functionality

Giddh offers custom-designed and diverse APIs that are organized around REST, and all API calls are made to https://api.giddh.com base domain. Its functionality relies on multiple HTTP features and the APIs are designed to predict URL structure and API errors (via HTTP response codes). To access the APIs, you must supply the User-authentication key (Auth-Key) in the Header with each API request.

Multi-currency Support

The multi-currency support is a crucial function that enables automatic conversion between currencies. This online accounting feature also allows setting specific preferences according to the customers so that international transactions can be seamlessly made irrespective of the currency. With the multi-currency support, you can expand your business confidently into international markets. As conversions and reporting can be automated according to the latest exchange rates, all of the guesswork and uncertainty associated with foreign transactions is entirely removed.

What are the reporting options offered by online accounting?

There are a variety of features of accounting, but you need to choose the ones that are best suited for your business because it can affect the quality and quantity of the generated reports. Some systems may not have the features you are looking for and some may have too many features. Some options you can look for are:

Standard reports:

Here the accounting system should be able to generate customary reports used in business. This includes profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, the accounts receivable/payable, and payroll summary.

Customizable reports:

Here the system will allow you to customize reporting options, which means you can create and accumulate the report that you choose. Look for systems that allow you to add and remove columns easily, especially in standard reports. It should allow you to resize columns and remember the reports so that they can be duplicated in the future.

Conclusion

These were some of the best accounting software features offered by Giddh which expedites the regular functioning of the enterprise. The gist of the matter, though, is that one must adopt appropriate accounting software if they wish to do away with ailments that have traditionally shackled the accountants, and hence, propel their business forward.

Which accounting software are you using in your organization? Do let us know about it via the comments section below.