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automating your accounting cycle

4 Steps to Automating Your Accounting Cycle

Today’s accounting cycle is extremely manual, time-consuming and inefficient.  Accounting processes are fragmented, which means that everyone has their own version of the truth.  Manual data entry and spreadsheets make it challenging to manage financial accounts efficiently.  This makes it almost impossible to identify areas for improvement or new opportunities for efficiency.  And while technology has made accounting easier in some ways, it hasn’t yet automated most processes.  Accounting is a behind-the-scenes job filled with paperwork, calculations, and record keeping.  It’s not an exciting job for most people.  However, as a business owner you know how important accounting is to your company’s success – and your personal prosperity – in the long run.  Even if you don’t have a background in accounting or bookkeeping, automating your accounting cycle effectively with the right tools and techniques will help.

 

Make Data Analysis and Reporting Automatic

You need an automated system for data analysis, reporting, and insights.  It needs to monitor your business’s financial metrics and produce insights and analytics.  You should be able to see which key metrics are increasing or decreasing, by how much, and why.  With this type of automation, you can see what’s working and what isn’t in real time.  You can also identify areas of improvement and more accurately forecast your company’s financial performance.

NetSuite financial reporting gives finance teams the tools to analyse and display data.  These reports can be fully customisable to meet your specific needs.

 

Audit Your Accounts Automatically

Automated accounting software can help you automate your accounts and reduce the need for manual and redundant tasks.  Accounting software can automatically perform tasks like data entry and reconciling accounts, so you don’t have to.  Doing so manually is inefficient and error-prone.  You should be able to set up automatic and recurring audits on your accounts to make sure everything is in order.

With NetSuite, you can set up recurring daily, weekly, or monthly audits to ensure all your transactions are being recorded and added to the correct financial accounts.  Automated account audits will help you identify errors and omissions faster than ever before.  You can also use the software to automatically identify and log discrepancies, which will help you resolve them more quickly.

 

Automate Receiving, Paying and Reconciliation

Receiving, paying and reconciliation are time-consuming and repetitive tasks.  You can speed things up by automating these processes, which will help you save time and increase your productivity.  Automated accounting software can help you record transactions quickly and easily.  You can set up rules, like an automatic entry log when a customer pays you by credit card or an automatic deposit when a vendor sends a check.

NetSuite allows you to reconcile your finances.  You can set up rules to automatically reconcile your accounts at specific intervals.  You can set up your accounting software to help you with vendor payments and customer receipts.  You can also use it to automatically track and reconcile tax deductions.

With NetSuite you can also view matched and unmatched transactions.  On top of that, you can manually match exceptions.  Furthermore, the software allows you to reconcile an account statement which displays matched and cleared account transactions in NetSuite.

 

Add a Tax Automation Step

Taxes are a big part of the business accounting process.  You can take steps to automate this part of the process as well.  Accounting software can help you with tax calculations and projections.  You can set up recurring events to automatically record important tax dates and data.  Automated accounting software will help you keep track of your tax-related financial transactions.  You can set up rules to automatically record receipts, cash flows, and other tax-related data.  You can also use it to automatically generate tax reports and help you file your taxes each quarter and year-end.

As NetSuite is a cloud based ERP system, this automation can be updated for over 100 countries worldwide.  It can even retain historical changes.

 

So How Can That Help Me?

Automating your accounting cycle with NetSuite can help you improve your business’s financial reporting.  It can also help you streamline you accounting process and save time.  This means that you can focus on other important tasks, like growing your business and taking care of your customers.  You need to choose the right accounting software for your business.  Automated accounting software can help you manage your business’s financial accounts more effectively.  It can help you save time and focus on more important matters.

 

Cofficient can provide you with a fully customisable NetSuite package that ensures you get exactly what you need.  We also provide support and training for all of your staff members who use the platform.  Get in touch and grow your business today.