Growing Your Business

In a world where nearly everybody has a vast amount of information available at their fingertips (be it via smart phones, tablets or laptops), there are still a large amount of business owners that cannot say the same for their business finances.

It is understandable that people are often too busy running their businesses to deal with the “necessary evil” of bookkeeping, VAT returns, PAYE returns etc. However, it is important that accurate financial management information is prepared on a timely basis to enable business owners to make decisions with this information in mind.

Many business owners only see accurate financial results after they have had their annual accounts prepared by their accountant. These accounts can be prepared up to nine or ten months after the financial year end – almost at the end of the following financial year.

But what if I told you that by having a good system in place for your businesses records will not only save you time and give you live up to date information to make informed business decision, but could also reduce your year-end accounts and tax compliance fees?

There are 1,000’s of time saving tools around to help your business reduce the amount of time spent on data entry and automate what once were manual tasks.

At Bishop Fleming, we have a dedicated team of specialist that keep up to date with the world of cloud accounting software and we can help review your current systems and processes and recommend improvements with the help of state-of-the-art accounting systems and add-ons.

There are a number of accounting software packages on the market and we often get asked which is the right package to go with. The short answer is – it depends!

I would always suggest speaking to your accountant before deciding which software to use, all businesses are slightly different and will have slightly different needs when it comes to what they need from an accounting package, but the key thing to remember is that all software’s are designed to get to the end results, so it’s largely going to be down to the individual preference and requirements of your business.

At Bishop Fleming, we can see the importance of getting the right fit for each business rather than suggesting a package as a default because it’s easier for us.

With the advances in technology and the arrival of the “cloud”, suggesting a cloud-based accounting package provides even greater flexibility and freedom for business owners, allowing them access to figures wherever and whenever required, from a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. Being able to update and check those figures on the move liberates the business owner from the office.

Cloud-based systems can also link to the business bank accounts so that bank transactions automatically feed through into the system, saving time and ensuring nothing is overlooked.

On top of this, the popularity of cloud-based accounting software has attracted the attention of software developers in other areas targeting specific sectors and needs by developing “apps” that integrate with certain cloud-based accounting software. There are apps covering all aspects for manufacturing businesses including: stock / inventory tracking; time tracking, CRM, payroll and point of sale.

Our dedicated team of specialists keep up to date with the world of cloud-accounting software so they are perfectly placed to help with the implementation of cloud-based account systems for businesses and recommend and set-up state-of-the-art add-ons to help ease the burden of data processing.

Please get in touch with a member of our team if you’d like to discuss if your current accounting system could be improved upon.