Most companies are obliged to keep accounts. On one hand, tax returns in the US need to be filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or with the state or local tax col­lec­tion agency. On the other hand, en­tre­pre­neurs and self-employed people should also take an interest in their earnings and ex­pen­di­ture. With the balance sheet, you can work out how prof­itable your company is and how much money you can expect to make in the future.

Ac­count­ing programs make work much easier. They are aimed primarily at self-employed people and SMEs (small/medium-sized en­ter­pris­es) since they often do not have pro­fes­sion­al ac­coun­tants and the book­keep­ing must take place as quickly and easily as possible. Software like this enables people without much ac­count­ing expertise to manage their book­keep­ing without any worries.

Cloud-based ac­count­ing is es­pe­cial­ly efficient, and you can do it all through a web browser ap­pli­ca­tion. The features of online ac­count­ing are explained in this article.

Ac­count­ing programs as web apps – what can they do

Specific software for ac­count­ing sim­pli­fies the task con­sid­er­ably. By using an online or a Cloud book­keep­ing program in the form of a web app, you can save yourself even more time. If you do financial ac­count­ing online, it means you can access your data from anywhere, and can carry out trans­ac­tions such as pre-reg­is­ter­ing VAT, or online banking via the program.

However, software spe­cial­ized in financial ac­count­ing also helps you in many other areas. All you need for online book­keep­ing is a suitable program, an internet-com­pat­i­ble device, and an internet con­nec­tion. The following is a de­scrip­tion of the most important functions of ac­count­ing software.

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You might also find our article on "Ac­count­ing apps in com­par­i­son: The best solutions for mobile ac­count­ing" in­ter­est­ing.

Dig­i­tal­iz­ing and saving documents

Ac­count­ing programs are useful because you can use them to bundle your entire ac­count­ing records into one program. For example, you can use the tool to dig­i­tal­ize and insert documents such as receipts and invoices. Here, it is possible to read the cor­re­spond­ing letters either by scanner or by pho­tograph­ing them with your smart­phone. The contents of the documents are then captured by text recog­ni­tion, which means that you don’t have to enter many details (invoice and sales tax amount, date, etc.) manually. The in­for­ma­tion goes directly into your account and is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly included in the ac­count­ing process.

Cloud ac­count­ing software guar­an­tees that your financial data is kept safe: your data is stored on the provider’s servers, which means you don’t have to worry about backing up your documents. When you keep up to date with your ac­count­ing, it means you have all the documents ready for the Internal Revenue Service at all times.

Account book

An account book enables you to keep track of all your incomings and outgoings. The software will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly list the costs and income based on your receipts, postage expenses, and money transfers (if you connect your online banking account to the ap­pli­ca­tion, you can move funds directly using the tool). You can generate daily and monthly state­ments using an account book.

This is not only an advantage for your company’s own book­keep­ing, but is something that you can also show the IRS.

Income statement

SMEs that don’t have double-entry ac­count­ing can use this sim­pli­fied program that works according to the inflow and outflow principle. Expenses are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed, which also makes gen­er­at­ing the income statement a lot easier. Just like the account book, the income statement is updated with every new piece of in­for­ma­tion added and can be accessed at any time.

With this part of the program, you can see how prof­itable your business was at a certain point in time: simply select a period and the ap­pli­ca­tion will show you your statement. All relevant incomings and outgoings, which are recorded in the system, are taken into account by the program. The income statement can also be exported as a PDF.

Ac­coun­tant export

If a tax con­sul­tant is to check your documents, they usually need your balance sheet in DATEV format. This is a standard format in tax con­sul­tan­cy, which can be created im­me­di­ate­ly with an ac­coun­tan­cy program using the correct ac­coun­tant export function.

If this file alone isn’t enough for your tax con­sul­tant and they want to look deeper into your files, you can simply add extra access to your financial account so they have every­thing at their beck and call. By offering features like these, book­keep­ing software makes it much easier to col­lab­o­rate with the tax con­sul­tant and saves both parties time.

Summary: Cloud ac­count­ing programs are efficient and easy to use

With the right software, ac­count­ing can be done in next to no time. You don’t have to be a trained ac­coun­tant to be able to use the program: thanks to the many useful features, templates, and the fact that all invoices can be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed, even beginners can quickly learn how to manage their book­keep­ing. You don’t have to worry about updating the software yourself, since the provider takes care of this. You just need to access the ap­pli­ca­tion in the browser and make sure you always work with the latest version of the program.

At the same time, ac­count­ing software also serves as a backup for your documents. Your data is securely stored on the provider’s servers and can be accessed online in just a few clicks. These Cloud features don’t only allow you to get an up-to-date im­pres­sion of your business’ financial situation from wherever you are. In addition, you can also photocopy documents with your smart­phone and upload them to your user account. Invoices and receipts, which you receive by e-mail, can simply be forwarded to your account. And thanks to text recog­ni­tion, a large part of the in­for­ma­tion is trans­ferred directly into the system.

An ac­count­ing web app au­to­mat­i­cal­ly creates balance sheets that you can download as text documents. Many features fa­cil­i­tate book­keep­ing, such as the automatic gen­er­a­tion of income state­ments or the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sending your documents in DATEV format. All in all, you save a lot of time and effort by using an ac­count­ing software, and therefore, more time for what’s really important: your business.

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