Cloud accounting – manna from heaven for the small business owner.
Everything you need to get on top of your business finances from your phone, laptop or anywhere else.
Easy. Simple. Off you go. See you at the year-end.
In many ways this is right. Cloud accounting software is incredibly powerful, helpful and, once you know how, easy to use.
And here we have the key point – “once you know how“.
Cloud accounting – get proper training
The quote in the title of this blog is real. An owner-manager said it when he called us to see if we could help him make sense of his own accounting. He’s not the first to make that phone call and he won’t be the last.
There aren’t many things you need to learn in order to make the best use of a cloud accounting solution but if you don’t learn them then there’s no way your numbers will be right and there’s a good chance you won’t know that and when the realisation dawns there might be quite a clean-up job to be done.
Along the way, you’ll have wasted a lot of time, probably submitted some incorrect VAT returns and maybe made some wrong decisions simply because you think your business is performing better or worse than it really is.
For a salutary tale read “This must be my profit because it says so on my phone.“
My accountant can help, right?
Well, probably.
Accountants team up with software suppliers but often they don’t look at the other software available.
And some cloud accounting solutions are better than others. A good test is whether you can get the reports you need to understand and run your business.
The important thing is that you’re using the software that’s right for you. Software you understand, feel comfortable with and which does the job your business needs it to do.
So it might be that your accountant isn’t the best person to give you the training you need on the software you want to use. And in that case, look around for someone who offers that training.
You don’t want to end up pulling your hair out over accounting software. Yes, it will help your business, yes, it’s easy to use and yes, you can do most of it yourself if you wish.
But learn how to do it properly!
And if you need help, give me a call – 020 7125 0270
Michael
Related links:
QuickBooks training – made to measure
