I recently attended Xerocon for the second year and Xero is at the centre of the Cloud Accounting Package (“CAP”) revolution.
All you need is a CAP; Internet enabled device and Internet access to take advantage.
Take for example one client who recently adopted a CAP to help alleviate some of the time they were spending keeping business records. The client often travels for their business which meant that they would be required to keep track of their expenses whilst they were away and catch up on the business accounting when they were back in the office.
This client now uses a CAP through Apps on their smartphone and tablet whilst they are travelling to keep their affairs up to date. Now, the following tasks are all done from the client’s smartphone, amongst other things:
- Issuing invoices via email directly to their clients;
- Capturing small out of pocket expenses such as fuel and parking by taking photos of the receipts, which are then uploaded into the CAP;
- Performing bank reconciliations; and
- Processing staff payroll;
The use of a CAP for this client meant that almost all of their accounting is now done during downtime between meetings, from their phone or tablet, rather than spending valuable time in the office on this task. They have also shared the access with us, which means that we are able to review real time information and assist solving problems immediately.
CAPs have also been of benefit to clients that are not in business, but rather have family entity structures to make investments. For example, significant time savings have been achieved by a client that holds a portfolio of investments through a family trust, by having their bank data fed directly into their CAP. As this was set up correctly from the outset, the CAP “learns” regular transactions that come through the bank account and makes suggestions as to how the transactions should be coded, all with minimal actual intervention by our client. This has significantly reduced their time commitment to keep good records, which they then use for more enjoyable tasks.
Importantly, CAPs in Australia are subject to strict privacy and integrity measures and are held to the same standards around online security as the banks are. Back ups are also performed with far greater regularity than would usually be the case with desktop versions of software.
We have experience in being able to identify which CAP is optimum for your business circumstances together with maximising the benefits from utilising your existing CAP.