Manual book keeping or even using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are approaching the end of their time; especially if your business is trying to keep up with the competition out there today. While you could take a horse and carriage to work every day, it is simply not the most efficient or reliable mode of transportation. Similarly, the use of notebooks and spreadsheets that once worked for businesses is not the most efficient or reliable way to track the accounting or financials for most companies today.
With notebooks and spreadsheets, you often rely on a handful of people to enter financial data that is generated across the company. This creates a bottleneck of data entry, risks for errors, and often requires double-entries, which is unproductive. If an employee goes on leave or takes a vacation, data often sits because no one else knows what to do with it. Often, this same group will have to audit the data to check for errors or miscalculations before generating reports or statements. Quarterly or year-end reports can take so long to generate, that the data is already too old to use when budgeting or setting goals for the upcoming year.
Powerful business management software, such as Microsoft Dynamics® GP, is rapidly becoming the replacement for notebooks and spreadsheets. This software solution is affordable for businesses of all sizes and easy to implement and use across the company. Since it resembles other Microsoft software, employees find it easy to learn which makes their data-entry tasks more efficient and reliable. Important accounting and financial data can be quickly entered and correlated so that double-entries and human errors are minimized. Alerts and notifications can be created in Microsoft Dynamics GP and used as checks and balances for business operations or metrics that you want to monitor closely. The built-in reporting formats can generate fast reports with real-time data that can be used to make important business decisions, business improvements, and help with setting business goals.
Using business management software such as Microsoft Dynamics GP is far more efficient, reliable, and generates deeper business insight than manual data collection methods. While notebooks and spreadsheet were appropriate for their time, now is the time to embrace more current tools that can help you grow and drive success. Please contact InterDyn-CFO Consulting for details on how Microsoft Dynamics GP can help you manage your business more efficiently and improve your bottom line.
By InterDyn CFO Consulting, Florida Microsoft Dynamics Partner
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Very simple and to the point! Microsoft Dynamics Software has proved it can handle unique business requirements, while remaining simple to use and staying ahead of the competition in technology.
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Whilst not disagreeing with your comments, many small businesses still rely and use spreadsheets as their accounting tool of choice. The question that could be asked is :
Are accounting spreadsheets OK for small businesses?
Spreadsheets are widely used and understood by most business people, so it comes as no great surprise that accounting spreadsheets are a popular choice for many small businesses.
All businesses need to keep accounting records; both for compliance and management purposes, and for many smaller businesses, simple accounting spreadsheets are all that are required.
Let’s just outline exactly what essential financial records a small enterprise needs to keep.
If we analyse this, there are four basic requirements:
1. You need to record Bank, Cash and other money transactions. This means a simple analysed listing of Receipts and Payments. These records are collectively known as a ‘Cash Book’, and they need to be correctly added up and reconciled (matched and agreed) to Bank Statements etc.
2. All of your sales invoices to customers and all of your purchase invoices from suppliers will also need to be listed, summed and analysed. These lists are referred to as a ‘Sales Day Book’ and a ‘Purchase Day Book’.
3. You need to monitor and control your monies received against Sales Invoices (Debtor Management) and monies paid to your suppliers in respect of their Purchase Invoices.
4. You need to review, analyse, correct and control these primary records to achieve a basic level of financial reporting and control.
If you can both understand and accurately maintain these basic bookkeeping tasks, then, you are a long way towards achieving a basic level of financial control.
Simple tasks, performed well, and on a timely basis are all that many small businesses require.
There is little need to invest time or money in anything more sophisticated, bookkeeping software can be as simple as this, and the information provided will be of significant financial benefit to the business owner.
The ability to manage these straightforward monthly listings will provide you with a platform to bringing together the 12 monthly worksheets into a consolidated workbook. You will now have a bookkeeping spreadsheet which contains a Cash Book, a Sales Day Book and a Purchase Day Book.
You will certainly have sufficient data for the preparation of rudimentary accounting reports.
If you have reasonable spreadsheet skills you could then progress to a more technical level. All the monthly data can be collated and analysed in different report formats to meet the needs of your business.
Finally, if you have accountancy skills, then Business Taxation, Year End and other Compliance requirements could be built into your system.
However, in my experience most small businesses will to leave this final step to their accountants. So, unless you fully understand concepts such as accruals, prepayments, depreciation, opening trial balances, disallowable expenditure, etc., then leave this final stage to the professionals.
As long as the bookkeeping spreadsheets are well designed; can comply with current requirements; and are fully reconciled, then for many small enterprises and self- employed individuals, accounting spreadsheets are workable bookkeeping solution.
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