Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Finance and Accounting Software

The aim of every business in general is to earn profit. The sustainability of business depends upon the surplus of revenues from business. Surplus revenue can be created and monitored through accounting. Therefore, accounting is a crucial part of a business. Accounting in small businesses is done manually. In case of medium and large scale companies, it is difficult to maintain timely accounting and finance records. Finance and accounting software helps your business maintain timely and accurate data.

We discuss here the advantages and disadvantage of accounting software for business.

Advantages:
  • Productivity: The accounting software provides facility to do the work quickly. It consumes less time and more productivity. The changes in the accounts can make faster. Only regular transactions are required to write. The statements are automatically generated by the software. You can get printouts immediately, whenever you want. The search options helps find data fast.
  • Cost economies: Computerized accounting system will cost in the beginning. One or a few employees can do the work associated with recording the accounting transactions and to produce the reports. While updating the employees training, cost will occur. But the productivity will tremendously effect.
  • Human resource: The human resource for the accounting department can decrease. One or a few people are enough to maintain the complete accounting cycle and to give the reports timely. The number of employees is depends upon the size of the operations.
  • Time: Time is a very important factor for everything. So many financial reports are used to prepare every year. Reports like tax submissions and returns to the government must be within the time. Computerized accounting will not make any late to get the reports and statements.
  • Auditing: Auditing is one of the major tasks in accounting. It aims to make work free from omissions and errors in accounts. Generally auditing conducts for internal and statutory. Internal auditing is performed to find and omissions. Such auditing is conducted by a senior accountant. Statutory auditing is must be by a Chartered Accountant (CA).
Only after a CA signs, government authorities accept to file tax returns and any legal activities. In any situation, auditing with computerized accounting is quicker and easier.
  • Up to date: The accounts are updated in computerized accounting. Entering a transaction will automatically update the complete cycle. So records are automatically updated and the balances of the accounts up to date.
  • Management information: The managers should not need the complete accounting ledgers. They just need the balances of the ledger. It is to make the decision. The managers can access any account information instantly.
  • Efficiency: Software helps do the work faster than manual and without any error. Here time saved and spent that time for other business development activities.
  • Exchange Rates: Now the software feasible to enter the exchange rates. If it is manually done, it takes more time. Using finance and accounting software, you can do the job in seconds.
Disadvantages:
There are some disadvantages of the accounting software. Those are as follows:
  • Power failure: Without power, your accountant can’t do anything because the computer does not work, as the access to the data is not possible.
  • Hackers: Hackers try to access confidential data by hacking the software. It is a big threat to your business.
  • Maintenance: Maintenance includes updating the software versions and the relevant equipment from time to time. Some versions of your equipment might need advanced version of the software. All this is a cost to the company.
There are both advantages and disadvantages for accounting software. It is better to get the best suitable software for the organization. Buy only after a thorough analysis. Otherwise, the core organ of the business may land in trouble.