How Cloud Accounting can help with your Business Continuity Planning

During uncertain times it’s essential that business owners can keep track of their business’s financial performance in order to instil stability and minimise disruption.

Over the coming weeks, we’re expecting many offices to close and work patterns to be adjusted due to Covid-19. This is likely to include most professional firms. Fortunately, Larking Gowen has a robust business continuity plan and all our teams can work remotely with no interruption to their day to day working. This means our teams can support our clients regardless of location.

As business owners, I’m sure that you will be requiring frequent contact and advice from your trusted advisor over the coming months. However, the challenge is - how can you provide them with access to your up-to-date business records if restrictions are in place?

Cloud Accounting

Larking Gowen has Platinum Partner status for cloud accounting platforms Xero and QuickBooks.

If you haven’t heard of Xero and QuickBooks before, these are online cloud accounting software packages designed to make life easier for small and medium sized business owners. Most importantly, these are cloud based so can be accessed by both you and your trusted advisor anywhere, if you have access to the internet.

Not only can these be accessed anywhere, they also both provide essential efficiencies which will relieve you of mundane bookkeeping tasks and allow you to concentrate on minimising any disruption within your business.

Integrated features

Both Xero and QuickBooks have amazing integrated features to help with everyday bookkeeping tasks.

The main ‘time saving’ feature is the live bank feeds. Bank feeds automatically import transactions from your bank, directly into Xero and QuickBooks. Therefore, eliminating the need to enter bank transactions manually into your cloud accounting software.

We make sure all our cloud accounting clients are set up with Receipt Bank https://embed.vidyard.com/watch/x5coA6aEWFUK5wB8pW7nPe This third party application allows you to take photos of your sales and purchase invoices using an app on your phone or tablet. It then extracts data from these invoices before they are published through to Xero or QuickBooks, avoiding any manual data entry of sales or purchases.

Real Time Information

As business owners, I’m sure many of you will be required to make some vital business decisions in the coming months but how will you be able to do this if you don’t fully understand where your business’s finances are at, right now?

Technology can be used to provide Real Time Information, to help business owners understand exactly where they stand.

It is essential that business owners have all the tools in place to enable them to provide their trusted advisor with information instantly. In return, bookkeeping can be updated on a daily basis, providing business owners with Real Time Information. This gives business owners the detail they need to make informed business decisions.

Cashflow is going to be key in the coming months and third party applications such as Futrli (https://www.futrli.com/) can be used to further help business owners with decision making.

Futrli integrates with Xero and QuickBooks and enables you to create budgets and forecasts based upon multiple scenarios. This is essential to enable business owners to gain a real insight as to what the future of their business will look like and so they can ensure they are on track to achieving their objectives.

In this current climate, it is essential that business owners have the resources required to utilise technology to their advantage.

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If you’re worried about the impact Coronavirus will have on your business performance and would like to know more about your business’s current financial position, please call Jessica Rafferty-Smith on 01603 624181.

Jessica Rafferty-Smith