Digitisation is being discussed everywhere and also plays a major role in accounting. The software developer Blackline has found out through a survey that many finance and accounting professionals could not do their work properly due to the home office phases in 2020, as many of their tasks are still done manually and paper documents have to be used.
That’s why CFOs around the world will be investing more in IT this year to automate manual tasks. But there is such a wealth of software out there in the market. How can finance managers buy the right IT tools and avoid bad investments in digitisation?
Of course each business is different, with different needs and different employee skill levels. Requirements must be analysed in detail and individually. However, there are four areas that should be examined first in relation to new IT needs. Our CEO Magnus Bilke has compiled a few requirement tips for you:
1. Outgoing Invoice Process And Bank Account Statements
Since both systems are used on a daily basis, digital documents should be prepared best as follows: The outgoing invoice, whether via a shop system or an internal backend, is ideally connected directly to the accounting system.
Alternatively, the exports from the systems must be designed so that they can be easily imported into accounting. Here you can access CSV exports and reimport this to your accounting system. But if shop systems are used with several thousand bookings per day, even such exports and imports are very laborious to process. Here, the shop systems or backend system have to do a lot of work so that the imports and the subsequent evaluations, for example the numbers for the VAT returns, can be processed much more easily.
Today, bank statements should not being allowed to print out and re-entered anymore. Most financial accounting programs can import account statements using the bank’s standard export, the SWIFT standard for the electronic transmission of account statement data MT940.
2. Incoming Invoice Process
This process is arguably the most difficult to digitise. Because everyone writes their bills as they want. There is still no standard or even an interface over which everything can run. Furthermore, everyone can send the invoices as he wishes — by post, by e-mail or even bring it in personally.
All of this makes it difficult to implement a suitable digital process here. The German authorities, for example, rely on XRechnung. But whether this will develop into the standard is questionable.
Most companies, however, already receive their invoice by email. The invoice receipt software would therefore have to link these systems with one another and then process them accordingly so that exports for accounting can also be generated here.
3. Credit Card Billing
The horror of every accountant is the credit card. Most of the time, the receipts are late every month. They are either not submitted in time by credit card users or have been lost. Why not fall back on systems that query the receipts directly when they are used. The credit card user can immediately photograph the receipts and save them in the system. Usually these are standard cases, such as hospitality and taxi bills, which can be selected directly in the system by the user. All of this helps to generate booking records as fast as possible.
To be recommend are getmoss and spenddesk. Getmoss is a corporate credit card that replaces expense reports of the many virtual and physical credit cards that are in use in any company. To the same time getmoss is able to check employee spending and it helps you to integrate the credit card spendings in your accounting system. Spendesk is a spend management solution that accountants love, because it automates many key accounting tasks, and eliminates most of the tedious data entry accountants find themselves stuck with.
4. Cloud Systems und Data Management
All systems should be usable from anywhere in the world and ideally linked to one another as remote working will become a standard in accounting in the future. Cloud systems are the solution here. In Germany, Datev is used very often and there are numerous interfaces here. Datev is a software house and IT service provider that offers solutions for accounting, financial accounting and auditing.
Whereas Xero and QuickBooks are very suitable for small businesses, NetSuite is built for larger companies. The ERP-System will save time and costs in the future, if you start implementing before changing in hyper growth mode. NetSuite is an automated platform that businesses in the quick and easy way are able to manage accounting. NetSuite provides support through the transparency of the tasks (f.e. support customer relationships and e-commerce processes).
Fluidly is perhaps a cash forecasting tool you might want to consider. It uses AI to automatically generate cash flow forecasts for you in real time so that you can spend less time in spreadsheets and more time creating value for your business.
Most important in difficult times is to get your accounting data in realtime. Lucanet is a Financial Performance Management software solution that helps you to create clarity in finances and provides the basis for reliable preparation of consolidated financial statements, transparent financial planning and consistent reporting. In this way you can tell the story of your finances as a whole and make decisions for the future of your company on a valid basis.
With the right software tools and automation of manual, slow and repetitive tasks, accountants can save a lot of time. In addition to increased productivity, there are many other benefits: Accountants get more accurate data, and financial information is instantly accessible. This means that any document or data you need is available to you whenever you need it, wherever you are.
Moreover, good accounting automation tools talk to other tools, eliminating the need to spend hours each month copying and pasting information from one tool to another. If you need more information and tips about your digitisation plans and suitable software tools, please contact our CEO Magnus Bilke (magnus@donefinancials.com).
