Tips on Taking your Accounting Virtual:
Accounting is an important part of any business. You need to keep a track of all your revenues, expenses and losses. It helps you when you’re filing your taxes along with evaluating your progress. That being said, virtual accounting is becoming more and more prevalent these days and the benefits are endless. Here are some tips on how to take your accounting virtual:
Choose a Software:
It may be overwhelming when deciding the best type of accounting software for your business. If you're not sure, Quickbooks is the #1 recognized accounting software in the world. They have several different versions depending on the type of business. Recently a self-employed version was added for solopreneurs.
This makes tracking mileage, filing estimated tax payments, and personal business deductions a breeze. As a reseller, Magnolia Virtual Solutions is able to offer discounted rates for upgrading or signing up with any version of Quickbooks.
Online Banking:
Make sure you have access to all your bank and credit card accounts online or via an app on your phone. Most banks have 24-hour online access to your funds, and if not they can easily be created. Also, if you have any loans, properties, assets, or large purchases, make sure you have access to some type of online statement account to access everything.
Make sure to download the Quickbooks Online app for your phone! Find out more here.
Notify Vendors & Customers:
If you are still accepting paper checks from customers, it is time to get into the year 2018. There are dozens of different ways to safely & securely receive payments from customers. Square, Paypal, & Quickbooks Payments are just a few options. Many bank accounts now have an option to send money to contractors via Chase QuickPay or Bank of America Zelle. Inform customers and vendors of your transition to paperless accounting. Give vendors any necessary details (cc authorization form, account #, etc.) in order to get online payments set up. Do the same for your customers. Customize an invoice with a link to pay electronically. This can be done via Quickbooks.
Paperless & Clutter Free:
Digitally storing documents in the cloud instantly makes your organization more flexible. Which Paper Can We Eliminate? Internal documents, billing statements, large files, meeting documents, faxed/scanned documents are papers you can transition into the cloud using a cloud storage option.
Some options for a cloud storage system is Google Drive, Dropbox, & Sharefile.TurboScan is a user-friendly App that lets you use your cell phone's camera as a scanner, and converts images captured to PDFs for emailing. And, eFax.com transmits the emailed PDFs directly into your email inbox.
Save Money & Time:
-Upload receipts to Dropbox so you can refer to them on your phone, computer, or anywhere
-Integrate an app like Hubdoc to fetch all your bank statements, invoices, receipts & match them to individual Quickbooks transactions so there is always a reference.
- It eliminates time-wasting steps of printing, filing and manually searching for paper documents.
The EPA estimates that a paperless office saves approximately $80 annually per employee in expenses associated with printing and copy paper, ink and toner, postage, and file storage facilities.
