To stay relevant and competitive, a business should be able to use all the best tools available to it. This article lays down 5 tools that everyone in the bookkeeping and accounting services industry should use.
- QuickBooks Online
If you’re talking about the world’s best accounting tools, it’s simply impossible not to mention the one and only QuickBooks Online.
The magic of QuickBooks Online is its versatility. If you’re a small business owner who despises financial mumbo-jumbo and would much rather just get on with the fun part of being an entrepreneur, QuickBooks Online can help you do just that.
On the other hand, if you’re a professional accountant who lives and breathes balance sheets, invoice records, and profit & loss statements, then QuickBooks Online can still give you everything you need.
QuickBooks Online offers the classic suite of accounting tools for anyone and everyone: dashboards for your business’s financial data and records, financial reports that you can customize according to your own needs, an invoice generator, online payment receipts, payroll processing, and the ability to turn pictures of receipts into catalogued business expenses.
Plus, QuickBooks Online syncs with your bank account and business credit cards so that your business’s financial data is always up to date. And if that weren’t useful enough, you can also share your QuickBooks Online with your accountant to simplify financials during tax time.
- WagePoint
When it comes to simple payroll, WagePoint can definitely help you out. WagePoint is concerned with ease-of-use in order to save you time, money, and energy. Why spend those valuable resources on processing payroll when you could be working on your business instead?
With WagePoint, you can make direct deposits, deal with payroll taxes automatically, receive year-end reporting, file for your 1099 and W-2 forms, and give employees their pay stubs online. It offers all the basics you’d need from payroll accounting tools.
- Expensify
“Because you have better things to do.”
Thats Expensify’s motto, and its a great one: Recording expenses probably isn’t high on your to-do list of important tasks, but it does tend to take up a lot of time and energy.
But what if you could automate the process?
That’s what Expensify aims to do. It enables you to take pictures of your receipts and turn them into categorized business expenses, which Expensify codes and reports automatically—you simply have to hit “Approve.” It also lets you set company policies for all of your employees, so that certain expenses are always sent your way to approve of while others get auto-filed.
Expensify also helps you reimburse your employees’ expenses the next day with their automatic rapid reimbursement system, and will sync with your accounting system whenever any changes get made.
Business owners get an easy, intuitive, convenient tool that can speed up the tedious process of dealing with expenses, while employees get next-day reimbursements with this straightforward accounting tool.
- Gusto
Gusto, previously known as ZenPayroll, is one of those payroll accounting tools that also comes with a huge selection of additional features. Plus, it’s available on your mobile phone, too, making it incredibly convenient for small business owners on the go.
You get the standard payroll offerings like automatic tax processing and filing at the local, state, and federal levels, employee on boarding and paystubs, and pure accounting software integrations (like for QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks!).
But in addition to those tools, Gusto also will give you the ability to easily enrol in health benefits plans, access and manage the human resources side of your business, and deal with 401(k)s and other retirement plans.
- Sage One
If you own a one-person business, then Sage One should definitely be at the top of your accounting tools list.
For starters, you can generate invoices and accept business payments online for only $9 per month. And if you need more functionality, then you can upgrade to Sage One Accountingat the still quite low price of $14 a month—to get an overview of your business’s financials, build accounting reports, and track your time and expenses.
Sage One is especially helpful if you’re working with freelancers or contractors for your small business, since its project management capabilities are an added bonus.
