Accounting software is witnessing never-seen-before numbers of UK firms signing up. Brands that offer such software are seeing a lot of new businesses signing up on a daily basis. Nearly 100% of companies that sign up for a free trial sign up for the full-service product and over 98% of companies that opt for the pay-as-you-go model sign up month after month. Over a million users globally place their trust in the best free UK accounting software brands in the UK, like Dext, for example
Now those figures might convince some, and might even have you somewhat convinced. But you want to know what makes it so great; isn’t that right? You’ve heard the whole spiel about how they increase productivity and professionalism in the most reliable manner. And that you can rely on them to increase profitability (this is one some find hardest to believe). What you would like to know is, how so? How exactly does software improve productivity, professionalism, and most of all profitability? And what do people mean when they say that accounting software achieves all this reliably?
Better productivity achieved by reducing the data entry burden and by easier expense approval
Have you ever sat down to calculate the number of hours that your team spends logging reimbursements? The hours spent by your team on supply chain spending-linked data entry? The hours spent by your accounting team on logging your organization’s countless transactions? In fact, most organizations tend to need additional accountants or external bookkeeping services as their business grows and the number of transactions increases correspondingly.
Reduce the data entry burden on the whole team by getting a free UK accounting software trial. You’ll see firsthand how accounting software is able to – within seconds, almost like magic – extract data from a variety of documents including bills, invoices, receipts, and bank statements. It can even pull data from an online source. This is how you can rely on the accounting software to improve productivity. Meanwhile, the software relies on Optical Character Recognition technology to be able to extract data from the said documents.
You’ll also find yourself being better-positioned to claim tax deductibles for expenses like coffee meetings and other things that you might use your personal credit card for. And of course, as the brains of the business, your productivity is money.
Another way that you will free up your own time, which you can devote to more productive tasks, is by the simplified approvals process that you will get the chance to experience as part of your free UK accounting software trial. You can approve expenses in a single click or simply delegate the whole task by adding approvers.
Professionalism achieved by error-free data
In your free UK accounting software trial, you will get hands-on insights into how data can flow directly from a PDF of a bank statement into your books of accounts, or directly from your business bank account to your books when you link them.
By eliminating the need for your accountant to manually enter this data, you are effectively also eliminating the possibility of human error. This means that you can have error-free data like corporations with much bigger budgets and periodic audits, not to mention several sets of eyes vetting the same data.
Moreover, errors and anomalies in the data are flagged up by the system – this is data science and artificial intelligence, at its very best, at your service as part of your best free UK accounting software trial. Additionally, duplicates are automatically deleted, saving a lot of time. You can test these out during your free trial.
Professionalism maintained and underscored by streamlined invoicing
One of the biggest signs of being a small shop is invoices that differ from project to project or month to month. Little things like fonts and font sizes, alignment of grids and figures, logo placement, and so on, that tend to differ depending on who made the invoice and at which computer, can ruin the professionalism that you struggle to achieve in your product or service. That’s terribly unfair, isn’t it?
During your free UK accounting software trial, you should definitely see how you get streamlined and standardized invoices, and not only that; you also get reminders around due dates and notifications when invoices are opened or paid, and when sent invoices to become overdue.
By not missing out on sending invoices and having greater chances of getting paid on time thanks to a client dashboard and notifications, you also improve your cash flow and profitability.
Profitability potential improved by providing decision-makers with the full (financial) picture
You also improve your profit potential when decisions are made with the most up-to-date version of your financials in hand. In the 2021 world, there is no room for making big decisions – and even some small ones – based on last month’s or last week’s numbers. Since data flows seamlessly from your business bank account to your books, you’ll always have live data.
In addition, accounting software is usually bundled with a smartphone app that allows you to access your data from anywhere in the world.
If you need answers from people, or if your bookkeeper needs answers from you, accounting software comes to the rescue once again because one can easily get clarifications on specific line items using the software.
Better negotiations enabled by measurement and AI-enabled insight
Vying for first place in terms of feature popularity, alongside receipt scanning, is a feature called spontaneous business insights. You might be able to only get a minor taste of this feature with your free UK accounting software trial because it is machine learning and historical data-based. This feature tells you where your supply chain leaks are and gives you other insights that might help you negotiate better with concerned parties (or change loyalties if required).
If you run a bookkeeping firm, be sure to use the business health checker feature to understand the state of a client’s books before onboarding, so that you can offer service rates accordingly.
Conclusion: For just about GBP 20 per month, you can reliably notch up productivity, professionalism, and productivity. Moreover, you can verify all these claims with a free trial. Get it now.