Many small and big businesses struggle with managing accounts and finances. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic caused a lockdown, which made physical accounting even more difficult. With the physical accounting process, you are more prone to errors, time-consuming checking and sorting of records, and spending huge processing costs on human resources for the same.
Whereas, UK accounting software eliminates the trend of human error and dedicates resources to managing and sorting accounts of the organization. It allows businesses to automate the complete accounting process like sorting and organizing data in a professional manner, updating profit and loss statements, maintaining reports, etc., which makes it a virtual accountant.
There are many other features where an accounting software acts as your virtual assistant, managing your accounting without any human intervention.
1. Core Accounting Tasks
Accounting software transforms all your accounting processes into an automated workflow system. It manages your general ledger, accounts payables and receivables, fixed assets, and other advanced core accounting tasks, which makes the whole process smooth and seamless.
The automation feature of UK accounting software allows you to access the accounting data virtually, without any need for printed physical reports, or documents.
2. Automated General Invoicing And Billing
You may find some accounting software specifically designed for invoicing and billing operations, but most of the software treats this as an integral part of the accounting process. It depends on the cost of the software, whether you want a specific lower-cost version or all-inclusive high-cost UK accounting software.
The virtual accountant or accounting software automates the general invoicing and billing process by attaching the invoices virtually with the purchase orders when sent to clients. This ensures transparency in the payment system and also updates the accounting sheets automatically when the payment is done, with the notification for the same.
3. Virtual Payroll System
Here, the accounting software calculates and processes the payments to be made to the employees, automatically and on time. It will also prepare and print virtual salary slips, and be prepared for all the legal and tax commitments without any error. The automated process ensures employee satisfaction, transparency, and responsiveness to financial obligations.
4. Virtual Inventory Management
The virtual accountant also manages inventory by performing functions such as automatic inventory stock calculation, warehouse inventory reporting, damaged or inventory loss reporting, etc. which makes it an apt choice for retail and eCommerce businesses. With advanced UK accounting software, you can also perform stock control options based on the data provided by it. Also, you can control the inventory availability and movement, and avoid all sorts of delivery risks such as understocking or overstocking.
5. Virtual Budgeting And Forecasting
This feature allows you to calculate and interpret finance performance for the current along with the budget projections for the next fiscal year. It uses the self-learning algorithms in-built, which track past recorded data and prepares the budget resorts and analysis. The major benefit is that it uses real-time data for all the financial calculations, which makes the data accurate in optimizing sales targets, and future investments.
6. Mobile Integration
The major issue with the manual accounting process is that you can’t carry your data and books with you, but that’s not the case with UK accounting software. Here, you can easily have access to the real-time accounting data of your company at your fingertips, within your mobile phone. It allows you to control and manage your accounts through a mobile application integrated with the software operated by all the employees, which keeps you updated and ahead of your competitors.
7. Virtual Reporting
The responsibilities and duties of accountants are increasing day by day, and reporting is one of those crucial responsibilities. Therefore, as a professional you require advanced tools to deliver high-quality industry-standard reports for better decision making and visibility. The robust reporting and analytics tools of UK accounting software allow businesses and accountants to generate detailed reports on metrics like sales, profit, loss, targets, vendors, infrastructure/ assets, financial ratios, etc. This gives finance managers and owners real-time financial insights and accurate information in a timely manner, leading to prudent decision-making.
Conclusion
Accounting software provides businesses with an easy and virtual way to perform financial operations accurately and efficiently. It eliminates the errors and time-taking redundant operations and replaces them with virtual automated accounting tasks like automated invoicing and billing, virtual payroll management, virtual inventory management, and reporting, etc., which makes it a necessary and productive virtual accountant.
