Are you stuck in the dark ages when it comes to your accounts? It might be time to bring your business into the 21st Century and start learning about what cloud accounting can do for you.
Here are some of the top reasons why you should switch from spreadsheets to cloud accounting to save yourself from headaches.
Reliability
Having only one copy of your accounts on one computer flags up a number of problems from the get-go. If both you and your accountant need access to the accounts, there can be issues when creating multiple copies and remembering which is the most up-to-date – do ‘version 2’ and ‘version 3’ sound familiar?
Cloud accounting, on the other hand, means your data is stored on servers that can be accessed from any device – as long as you have the right log in information. Some cloud accounting software also automatically flags up any data it think may be incorrect – making your data much more reliable than it would be on a spreadsheet.
Security
When using a spreadsheet, there’s the possibility that you could lose the work if something happens to the computer or the external hard drive the data is saved on. Because cloud accounting allows your data to be accessed from any device, there’s no question that you may lose the data if your computer breaks, as you can simply log in from another device.
Some may be opposed to signing up to cloud accounting as they believe their data won’t be safe. However, because your data is stored on servers for the purpose of this specific purpose, there are much heftier precautions in place to ensure that your data stays secure.
If you’re concerned about security of cloud accounting, you can contact the software provider you’re looking to join to see how their security matches up to the others on the market.
Ease of use
It’s not a huge secret that spreadsheets can be a great pain to work with – especially when you’re trying to update them on a regular basis for your accounts. They’re time-consuming, faffy and downright infuriating to deal with at times.
Cloud accounting takes all this frustration away. Rather than having to enter and delete columns and rows, and then colour-code them according to the category they’re listed under, there’s a much simpler solution.
With cloud accounting, the sections you need to enter data into are already outlined, and can easily be edited. Some software also offers graphs which can make your income and expenses easier to see.
Extra features
Along with easier views, the most cloud accounting solutions offer extra features which are invaluable to small business owners.
These may include; invoices, user permissions, bank feeds, receipt uploads and specific management – such as VAT management or payroll help.
This extra help can be enormously useful if you struggle to understand the specifics of accounts or if you require one platform to work from in order to simplify your processes (we all know small business owners have enough to do as it is).
Making Tax Digital
In April 2019, it will be compulsory for every small business owner (or at least, those who would ordinarily complete an annual Self Assessment return) to submit their accounts on a quarterly basis to HMRC.
This switch to Making Tax Digital (MTD) means it’s even more important for you to get a wriggle on and sort out those old spreadsheets into some coherent cloud accounting transactions that can be edited and updated without having to worry about losing an external hard drive or having multiple different versions in different places.
Is it time for you to switch to cloud accounting from spreadsheets? Sign up for a free Pandle account today to simplify your bookkeeping.