The pandemic proved the importance of cloud accounting, with many businesses closing their doors and going fully remote, there was an influx of enquiries within our cloud accounting team. With many businesses wanting the ability to seamlessly shift to remote work and keep their accounting function running perfectly even when employees aren’t in the office, cloud accounting was the solution. Here we explore how the same advantages may apply to recessions.
Xero
Xero is an entirely cloud based accounting software for small businesses. It performs accounting functions such as invoicing, payroll etc. and also allows for direct business bank feeds to streamline bookkeeping. Xero has some great standard features such as business snapshot which is a dashboard style report, displaying performance measures to help you understand the financial position of your business. Using your customisable dashboard, you can discuss your businesses financial health with your adviser quickly.
Using automated daily bank feeds and tracking categories you can keep a close eye on any areas of your business that may be more cost sensitive and very quickly see what is included within each nominal – even drilling down to a copy of the original purchase invoice within a few clicks of a button.
As Xero platinum advisers, our cloud team work closely with Xero every day, offering expert advice in converting from other accounting platforms to performing Xero health checks and making recommendations for software integrations that will help improve efficiency and cut processing time for finance teams. Prices for Xero start at £28pm.
Dext
Dext is our no.1 recommend app integration with Xero. Dext is a software application that allows business owners to electronically capture and store receipts, invoices, and other supporting documents which a business depends on to ensure they keep accurate and secure financial records. Dext removes the hassle of manual entry.
Dext also has the ability to fetch supplier information using API links, taking the stress out of uploading information out of the equation too.
Telleroo
For many businesses, making manual payment runs takes a large amount of time. From choosing which invoices need paying to manually inputting bank information to online banking – Telleroo takes care of all of that for you. Your supplier or contacts financial information (payment details) are all input into Xero, bills are then selected in Xero using payment due reports and marked as paid by Telleroo – this sends an automatic payment run to Telleroo for approval (with copies of the invoices if also using Dext) and with a very swift approval process the payment run will be made. No more manual bank payments!
Approvalmax
With more remote working and digitalised finance functions, Approvalmax acts as your approval stamp at a managerial level except it’s completely digital. As businesses look to tighten their spending in certain areas, Approvalmax allows for a seamless PO and PI matching process, with a completely bespoke approval matrix available.
Capitalise
We have partnered with Capitalise to enable an easy funding search application process which can be completely managed by us. Capitalise allows us to do one application to most high street and other less traditional lenders for a range of finance products – whether a simple bank loan or a more complex invoice financing facility, our relationship with Capitalise and the connection with cloud accounting software allows us to search for the right products if needed.
Capitalise also has a credit improvement service which aims to help strengthen any companies with a less than average credit rating, which in turn will allow for better terms for any lending if required.
Futrli
Futrli predict helps prepare short or long-term forecasting and reporting using all your accounting data. You can see daily whole business analysis across all customers and suppliers. Follow profit and cashflow, and debt to discover how you’re tracking to your plan. It also has the ability to create and manage reporting boards and KPI packs, making reporting easy and accessible. Feeling the cashflow pinch? Futrli can track daily cashflow with pinpoint accuracy, understand the optimum time to pay suppliers to get the best cashflow for your business and see the impact of early or late customer payments.
Futrli can also help speed up the budgeting processes with instant smart budgets using algorithms.
How could this help in a recession?
Cloud accounting makes it easier to predict and access the relevant information – not to mention the fact that cloud-based services tend to cost less than yesterday’s on-premises solutions and drive more value too. For everything that companies strive to do during recessions, such as cut costs, stay agile, get innovative – cloud-based software serves the agenda.
Our experienced cloud team are proactively helping many businesses digitalise their finance functions by converting and implementing different software and applications to streamline the finance functions of all sized businesses.
Get in touch
For further information or advice on the above cloud-based options or any general guidance on what may be the right options to ensure your business is well equipped to survive a recession, please get in touch with our cloud team manager, Rosie Cooper, using the button below.
A comment to note that the article does not constitute personalised advice and that advice should be sought before taking any action.
