Accounting Software

What Is Accounting Software?

As your business expands, it becomes cumbersome and time-consuming to manage finances with spreadsheets and ad hoc tools. Accounting software are computer applications to automate financial management and accounting in an organization. Accounting software can provide summary information as well as drilled down views of financial data. Accounting applications manage financial transactions and automate business workflows. They record monetary information and take care of reporting required for regulatory compliance.

Key Features of Accounting Applications

An IT-enabled accounting system should be more than an application that merely records financial transactions and generates financial statements. In today’s complex business scenario, apart from bookkeeping, it should streamline information and workflows such that you can understand the financial aspects of your business and are empowered for better decision making. Some of the must-have features of an accounting software program are -

Accounts Receivables

A company has to track receivables from multiple sources - clients, banks, refunds, borrowers, etc. The system should be able to provide the functionality to manage all receivables in an organized and timely manner. The application must have the following functions -

• Create invoices and create recurring invoices
• Schedule recurring invoices and send invoices to customers regularly
• Manage customer information and payment information
• Set up notifications and alerts for clients for payment due
• Track unpaid invoices
• Manage multi-currency transactions and online payments

Accounts Payables

An organization has to keep track of amounts payable and follow the payment schedule. It builds goodwill and avoids penalties and fees. The system should manage and track the workflows from orders given to cash paid. Therefore it should support the following -

• Create purchase orders for raw materials and other goods and services
• Send purchase orders to vendors
• Track and classify costs
• Manage vendors and payment information
• Schedule, categorize and automate payments
• Track unpaid invoices and set up alerts
• Manage multi-currency transactions and online payments

Banking

Banking is an important aspect of financial management. An organization will deal with banks on a daily basis. The organization will have multiple accounts, loans and debit, and credit transactions. The program should support all aspects of banking -

• Manage various bank accounts (checking accounts, savings accounts, investment accounts)
• Manage credit cards, debit cards, and online payment options
• Maintain secure connections with payment gateways
• Reconcile bank accounts, credit card accounts and online payment accounts
• Automate and schedule payments
• Process banking statements regularly

Payroll

Payroll involves a lot of cash outflows. There are different transactions to be taken care of. Here are the key capabilities that the accounting program should provide for -

• Calculation of wages and salaries.
• Processing of payslips and payment to employees
• Tracking of leaves, taxes and salary advances
• Tracking of reimbursement claims of employees, benefits and bonus claims
• Support for bonuses and wage adjustments and exception payments.
• Managing payroll related tax commitments
• Employees’ access to their data and allow them to save and print relevant forms.

Expense Tracking

Accounting software can automate expense management in different ways -

• Log bills and receipts and attach them to transactions using image capture technology
• Track, categorize and report expenses
• Sync accounting changes
• Automate expense workflow so that employees can request, review and approve expense reports smoothly.

Reporting

Reporting gives real-time financial visibility across the business. The accounting system should allow users to make sense of the data -

• Income and expenditure reporting
• Generation of financial statements such as Ledger, Cash flow statement, Profit and Loss statement and Balance sheet.
• Graphic representation of information
• Trend analyses and comparison views and charts
• Compilation of data on sales, purchases, taxes, cash flow, etc.
• Custom on-demand dashboards and pivot charts

Why Do You Need Accounting Software?

Many a time, the financial team invests a lot of time and effort in searching for data and preparing reports and statements. They prepare reports on past performance. Instead, they should be obtaining and analyzing relevant information of the present to achieve their goals. A comprehensive accounting software suite will empower them in various ways such that they can propel the organization on the path to success.

Let us look at some important benefits -

• It automates time consuming financial tasks and administrative processes thus reducing time and effort and also lowering the cost of operation of these tasks.
• It allows for better collaboration between colleagues and with customers and vendors as most transactions can be done via the software. There is better transparency.
• Reporting and analytics help to look at past data, present performance and forecasts. This will help in developing smarter strategies
• Financial data needs to be safe and secure. Accounting software with good security features will ensure that data is secure and transactions are logged and monitored. It allows for backups and has inbuilt access control and authorization mechanisms.
• Accounting systems provide features for documentation and audit. They have appropriate archival systems for documents. This ensures information for tax compliance is in place. The company can generate and submit reports required by regulatory bodies. Relevant documentation for audit processes is available and internal and external audits can be conducted seamlessly.
• Other benefits include data visibility, improved productivity, and streamlined processes.

Accounting Software By NCrypted

NCrypted has deployed accounting software at various client sites. Our key strengths are expertise in the domain, reliable software and tailor-made applications that accommodate the varied and complex requirements of an organization. At a strategic level, our software will help your organization to -

• Measure and supervise the business performance
• Obtain relevant inputs to develop and review enterprise strategy
• Closing month end reporting in a timely and accurate manner and deliver financial statements to various stakeholders.