Accounting Software: How Do You Choose the Right Program?

How do you feel about bookkeeping? Keeping track of invoices, receipts, and payments can be tough when you are a small business. After all, you already have inventory to manage, orders to fill, or maybe livestock to sell. For many people, trying to sort out financial statements and taxes involves handing a stack of papers to their accountant and hoping that they can make sense of it all.

However, this method involves quite a bit of your accountant’s time, and often quite a bit of your time as well because your accountant will often come back to you asking you to locate missing receipts or deductions.

There’s an easier way to do it.

Modern, online accounting software can save you and your accountant considerable time and reduces the time you’ll spend digging through papers. Most programs can hook up directly to your bank transactions and can allocate common expenses accurately and automatically—no need to worry about reconciling your bank transactions before preparing your BAS! The software can also often link directly to your accountant, allowing them to get in and help you if you get stuck, or easily access all of your information to quickly prepare tax returns, BASs, or financial statements.

Because of these advantages, we often recommend online accounting software to our clients. However, there are a few things to consider before you take the leap.

1. How good is your internet connection? If your rural internet connection isn’t very good, it might be less trouble to continue using a manual cashbook or to purchase an offline software package rather than one that requires you to download forms, transactions, etc.
2. How much will it cost? Make sure you contrast the amount that you will spend on the software with the amount that you will save by reducing the time required from your accountant. And ultimately, consider how much time it will save you, and how you could spend that time on your business instead. However, if you have a small number of transactions and have a system that works efficiently already for you and your accountant, the cost just might not be worth it. Note: some brands offer free trial periods so you can try it out before committing!
3. What do you need help with? Different types of software specialise in different items, so asking this question is important in identifying the brand and which package to get. Do you need something to help you with payroll for your employees and invoicing, or is it just for simplifying BASs, financial statements, and tax returns?
4. How user-friendly is the program? Again, different programs have different interfaces and specialties, and there’s no need for you to struggle with a technically complex program if a simple, user-friendly one will suit your needs.
5. Can you expand the program if your business needs change? If you are just starting up and hoping to grow, consider that the program that works best for you now may not be able to handle your future needs.

In general, it’s always a good idea to chat to your accountant before making the switch to accounting software. Your accountant might be able to get you a discount on the software and can advise on which program will work best for you. However, make sure that you’re not buying something that your accountant will get more perks from than you do. Ultimately, the choice is yours—in terms of both brand and whether to purchase a software package in the first place.

Here are a few commonly used accounting programs:

However, there are also other options that we are happy to discuss with you! Contact us for more info.