Online Accounting and Bookkeeping Services

Thursday, 8 April 2021

Signs of an Perfect Bookkeeping Service

When it comes to Bookkeeping Services, you need to make sure that you are using the one service that is excellent and that is offering a great Bookkeeping service. However, the one thing that people are wondering about, is how do you know that you are about to hire an excellent Bookkeeping Services and not just any service that you might regret later on.

Signs that you are Hiring Excellent Bookkeeping Services:

They come to you

The first sign that you are going to hire a QuickBooks bookkeeper is if she is coming to you and your business. Yes, there are some of the bookkeepers that you need to go to in order to get up to date about your business. However, this is normally a sign of not using the best service.

They are willing to come to your business every month for updates and to ensure that the books are in order. Don’t hire them if they aren’t prepared to do this for you.

The service has the Right Amount of Experience

It is important that the service has the right amount of experience. This means that you should make sure that you are going to hire someone that have years of experience and that have good reviews.

The longer the bookkeeper has been doing this service, the more experience they will have. Then, you will know that your business is in good hands. Something that you will not know when the bookkeeper service is still new.

They have good communication skills

Another thing that you need to look at is to make sure that you have hired a great bookkeeper as if they are communicating with you in a professional matter. It doesn’t matter if you have a problem with the service that they deliver, or if you have any inquiries about their service.

They are always communicating with you in a professional matter. And, you are feeling comfortable to contact them anytime.

Their fees are reasonable

When a bookkeeper is delivering high-quality service, they don’t need to ask high fees. They know that they have a couple of clients that are satisfied and they know that reasonable prices are just going to make them even better.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should go for the cheapest bookkeeper service that you can find. This doesn’t mean that they are the best. This only says that you don’t need to hire the most expensive bookkeeper service to get a high-quality service from them.

When it comes to bookkeepers, you need to know when one of these services are known as the best bookkeeping service in your area. These are some of the signs that you need to look for if you want to make sure that you have hired the best service for your business. There are many businesses that regret using bookkeeping services that aren’t recommended. The only way to make sure that they are recommended is if you know the signs of an excellent bookkeeper.

Best Retail Business Accounting Software

Opening a retail store is a big accomplishment. Whether you have a traditional brick-and-mortar operation, or you’re going all-in with an online store (or even a combo of the two), retail lends itself especially well to scaling and delegation. This allows you, the business owner, to enjoy the profits from your business without having to be entrenched in the day-to-day operations of the store.

To enjoy any possible profits of your retail store, however, you have to remain organized and properly manage your finances—making the right retail accounting software essential for Bookkeeping for Retail store.

With this in mind, you might start your search with these options—some of the top retail accounting software solutions on the market:

1. QuickBooks Desktop

2. QuickBooks Online

3. Xero

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, these are just a few of the retail shop accounting software options that are available out there. Ultimately, therefore, it will be up to you to decide if one of these solutions or an alternative platform is right for your business.

Additionally, you’ll want to consider the flexibility, accessibility, and of course, affordability of any retail accounting software—especially if you have multiple locations or run an online-based business. To this end, you’ll also want to ensure that any platform you choose can integrate or work with any existing business tools you utilize, particularly your point of sale system or ecommerce software.

Top Accounting Software for Retail Business

1. QuickBooks Desktop

As you search for the right retail shop accounting software, there’s no doubt you’ll come across the QuickBooks suite of products. QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting solutions for small businesses out there—and for good reason.

In particular, the more traditional QuickBooks Desktop is a great option for brick-and-mortar retailers.

With QuickBooks Desktop, you can:

Track income and expenses
Create and send invoices
Run over 100 reports
Track sales tax
Manage bills and accounts payable
Track inventory with up to 14,500 items
Pay 1099 contractors

2. QuickBooks Online

When it comes to cloud-based retail accounting software, QuickBooks Online is going to be one of the best solutions out there. Similar to QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online is known for its reliability, range of features, and powerful accounting tools.

Unlike QuickBooks Desktop, however, QuickBooks Online is web-based—meaning you can use your account anywhere you have internet access. In this way, QuickBooks Online is a much more flexible solution, making it a great choice for multi-store retail businesses, as well as online retailers. QuickBooks Bookkeeping Services helps you in manage your accounting services with Quickbooks.

3. Xero

With unlimited users, inventory management included in all plans, and over 700 third-party integration options, Xero accounting is one of the best accounting software solutions for online retail businesses. A top alternative to QuickBooks Online, Xero offers many of the same features, with a few slight differences.

First and foremost, as we mentioned, Xero includes unlimited users with all three of their plan options, as well as inventory management tools, among a full range of standard bookkeeping and accounting features.

Additionally, Xero’s three plans fall at a generally lower price point in comparison to QuickBooks Online, with the Early plan starting at $9 per month—although this plan limits the number of invoices, quotes, bills, and transactions you can make on a monthly basis.

The Bottom Line

This being said, as you compare different options, you’ll want to be sure to pay attention to their general accounting tools, as well as the features that are more specific to retail businesses—like inventory, sales tax, and payroll.

Monday, 5 April 2021

6 Bookkeeping Pains An Outsourced Bookkeeping Service Can Resolve

For many businesses, their bookkeeping causes a lot of pain. However, when handled correctly, there are many pains that proper bookkeeping can remedy. Common reasons that bookkeeping causes pain are: it is intimidating, people don't like it, and it's often way behind because it gets pushed to the back burner.

1.) Time Crunch

There is never enough time to accomplish everything in your small business, is there? People often use time as an excuse for not performing a task when they don't want to attend to it or don't know how to get it done.

If you don't find it practical to do your bookkeeping because it takes you away from more critical business tasks, then you should probably outsource it.

2.) Stress and Anxiety

When you start talking bookkeeping and taxes with many business owners, you often trigger a worried look. Bookkeeping can cause a lot of anxiety and worry for the small business owner, but for outsourced bookkeeping experts, it creates an opportunity.

Creating the proper bookkeeping system and giving a business owner a set of books that adds value will reduce their anxiety and worry when it comes to their business finances. Quite often, the key is accurately updating the books regularly.

3.) Access to Updated Information

Another pain that bookkeeping can create is a lack of access to updated information.

New clients often complain that the books are behind and inaccurate. Business owners complain that they don't get reports from their bookkeeper often enough, and when they do, they don't contain accurate or relevant information.

4.) Access to Relevant Information

If you don't have updated information, you likely have no idea of where your business stands, and if you don't have access to the relevant information you surely have no idea where you are going.

Outsourced bookkeeping services should not only give you a firm grasp on where you currently stand as a business but more importantly, where you are going. Your small business financial reporting should not only identify possible issues but opportunities as well.

5.) Ability To Adjust

An inability to adjust to happening changes can be a huge pain point.

If you don't know where you are at or where you are going, you are in the wrong spot. This position leaves you incapable of making the proper adjustments to keep your business on track.

A robust bookkeeping system will keep you fully in tune with the financial aspects of your business. This will give you the flexibility and power that you need to make quick adjustments in your business to overcome market changes and take care of opportunities that present themselves.

6.) Taxes

Taxes are painful for a lot of businesses. If you are continually filing for extensions or have not filed taxes at all, then you are feeling a lot of pain.

Business owners hate taxes, but too many of them take a reactive approach to taxes rather than a proactive approach. You should be reviewing your tax situation with your CPA at least semi-annually if not quarterly.

If your bookkeeping system is not kept current, then you have no way to solve your tax pain.

Fortunately for many small business owners like you, it is never too late to get your bookkeeping on track with the support of the best QuickBooks bookkeeping experts. Schedule your free consultation with us today.

How Remote Bookkeeper Can Help Your Business?

Let’s face it; even the most successful business owner is faced with challenges that they need help with. From recruiting the best employees in the industry to developing an innovative marketing plan to increase sales, many different duties and responsibilities must be done to keep an operation running smoothly.

Fortunately, today’s creative technologies and the Internet has become a winning combination for any business owner. This is because these innovations have leveraged the competition for the small businessperson, especially since businesses all over the globe can obtain the business financial help that they need remotely via a virtual bookkeeping service.

Remote Tracking of Where Your Money is Going

One of the main services that we offer to our clients today is keeping track of where the money is going. Operating expenses, petty cash funds, and office supplies purchases will all be accounted for in the bookkeeping statements that we provide. Thus, you will always know where your money is going without having to stay up all night updating your journal entries or producing time-consuming reports.

Full Range of Services Provided

With a wide range of virtual bookkeeping services, we give you the opportunity to choose what you need from us. We also have the expertise in-house to customize a bookkeeping solution that will meet your specific industry’s needs. Our virtual bookkeepers will not only make sure that your income and expenses are recorded on a timely basis, but also reconciled, and organized into your own accounting software programs. Here’s a list of some of the remote business financial services that we provide:

Eliminate the Tax Season Havoc

Another benefit that we offer to you and your company includes virtual accounting services that will make tax season a breeze. By organizing the financial statements in a manner that makes it easy for a CPA to produce tax statements for the end of the year, it will not only save time, but also money in getting the tax forms for the IRS completed right the first time. In fact, there will be no more barely making the deadline each year or missing it altogether due to the lack of the right information and limited time.

Running a successful business operation will take not only time but also money. This is one of the primary reasons why many owners hire others to assist them. One of the most important areas is booking since it helps to keep up with the finances of the business, income, and expenses.

Contact us here for Remote Bookkeeping Services for Business.

Friday, 2 April 2021

Business Success Begins with Cash Flow Management

In reality, the basic mechanics of cash flow management apply similarly for small businesses and large companies alike; the only difference is in the tools they require. Growing small businesses need to collect cash as effectively and efficiently as possible, while gaining more control over the cash they pay out so it can be better utilized within the business. This requires a more deliberate and disciplined approach to cash flow management.

Fortunately, there are now some simple, affordable solutions that can help small businesses gain the upper hand on their cash flow.

Getting Cash In

Businesses must be able to convert receivables into cash as quickly as possible. When receivables get out of control, it could be the beginning of cash flow death spiral. The key is to systematize and automate wherever possible.

Don’t Allow Your Customers to Set the Payment Terms

If you let your customers dictate the payment terms, it might be just a matter of time before their cash flow problems become your problems. Set strict payment terms, even if it means losing a prospective customer, especially where credit is being extended. Include in your payment terms specific time frames for paying the balance due, late payment penalties, and conditions that may trigger legal actions. Good customers will respect your formality.

Automate Your Billing Process

If it takes more than one person or more than one day to get an invoice in the hands of a customer, you are wasting valuable time and resources. Considering that you could wait up to 60 days for a payment (with net 30 day payment terms), you can’t afford to manually bundle your invoices and send them once a week or once a month. Using an automated billing process can not only reduce staff costs. It can also accelerate the conversion of receivables into cash.

Automate Your Collections

For small businesses, collections can overwhelm their resources and put a serious crimp in their cash flow. Automate your collectible system so it can provide your billing person with a daily report sorted by age and amount owed. This will not only enable you to foresee potential cash flow problems, it will help your billing person to focus on outstanding accounts in order of priority. Ask your business bank about an automated collections system.

Accept Electronic Payments

With the availability of affordable electronic payment processes through a business bank, such as credit cards and electronic funds transfer, there is no reason why a small business can’t accelerate their cash receipts while minimizing float. Digital payment options can not only streamline the receivables process, they can also provide greater protection against fraud.

Put Your Cash to Work

In the digital age, cash should never have to sit idle. In the not so old days, businesses would have to bundle their excess cash and run to the bank to make a deposit. Today, your cash can move automatically from your business checking account to an interest–bearing account each night. These automated “sweep” systems determine how much surplus cash can be swept, leaving what’s needed for the next day’s payments. Putting your excess cash to work could add hundreds of dollars to your cash flow each month.

Control Your Expenses

Of course, many cash flow problems can be solved by better managing expenses. However, the focus for many small businesses tends to be on short–term expense reduction – cutting an expense here or there, or getting a one–time price break on materials, etc. Effective expense management requires a long–term plan with an ongoing review of expenses. The focus should be on creating sustainable savings in supplier and operating costs. For instance, it may be more cost effective to negotiate for better payment terms over price.

Controlling Cash Out

On the expense side of the ledger, controlling how, when and to whom payments are made can have as big an impact on your cash flow as getting cash in. The longer you can keep cash working for you in the business, the more control you will have over your total cash flow situation.

Control Your Disbursements

For the extra few weeks — or even few days — that your business can keep cash on hand and earning interest, it is well worth the effort to analyze the payment terms of all of your vendors and suppliers to determine a precise payment schedule. Many businesses lock themselves into an internal payment schedule based on a certain day of the week or month for paying bills. It’s not uncommon for some businesses to pay all of their bills at once, which can potentially create short–term cash crunches. The objective should be to keep cash in your business as long as possible. This is best achieved using an automated payables system linked to the Automated Clearing House (ACH) or Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

Digitize Your Payables

Writing, issuing, tracking and reconciling paper checks can tax the resources of a small business. Small businesses can now have access to electronic payment solutions, such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), Electronic Funds Transfer and online banking platforms that enable them to streamline the payables process, reducing the time, cost and errors associated with manual payments. The ability to monitor transactions in real time enhances your ability to manage your cash position at all times.

Partner with MAC for More Creative Solutions

With the array of robust cash management solutions available today, small business owners never have to be in the dark about their cash situation, and their cash need never sit idle again.

Contact us here for Business Cash Flow Management Solution for small Business.

Cash Flow Management: 3 Best Practices for Small & Medium Businesses

Staying on top of your cash flow is vital to running a small business smoothly. According to a U.S. Bank study, poor cash management is the cause of 82% of business failures. Cash flow is critical to the survival and success of your business. Without it, you cannot hire or pay employees, buy inventory, expand your operations, or secure a line of credit or financing. Cash Flow Management is very important and crucial factor in Business.

1. Understand Your Cash Flow

One of the first things your business should do is get a 360-degree overview of its cash movements and situation. There is a common misconception that profit is the same thing as cash flow. It is not.

Simply put, your business profit equals revenue minus tax and expenses. When you invoice a customer, that counts as revenue, but you will not necessarily have cash. Your business can figure out its profit for the month and find that it has a cash flow issue. To best understand your cash situation, you will need a cash flow statement and cash flow forecast.

2. Increase Sales, Not Expenses

Many things can put a strain on your cash flow. One of the most common is having expenses that are either out of control or simply not justified. Every business has bills to pay. But is yours efficient with its accounts payable?

If you are paying cash for equipment and inventory when there are better options, you could be straining your cash position. Take full advantage of payment terms and segment your expenses between those that are business-critical (payroll, taxes, rent) and those you have more flexibility on payment timing.

3. Help Your Customers Pay You Promptly

Unpaid invoices are a significant factor in small business cash flow. One study determined that the value of small business unpaid invoices is roughly $825 billion, or about 5% of U.S. GDP. Here are some of the ways you can take control of your invoices and shorten the time between billing and payment.

For a small business, unreliable cash flow can be catastrophic. Even a short-term cash flow problem can make it tough for a company to continue operations. Outside of knowing the ebbs and flows of your business, using these best practices can help you effectively manage your cash flow and have the resources available for growth and expansion.

The team at MyaccountsConsultant can help your business with cash flow projections and management. contact us here at your convenience for a complimentary consultation to discuss your business challenges and goals.