Saving money in self-employment - how modern accounting should work!

Your own independence can be both a curse and a blessing. Being your own boss, vacation when you want and independence - that is what most people think when they think about the topic.

But reality looks different. There are many new things to come for people who dare to take the step into self-employment. One of those things is Best accountants in slough. According to German case law, there is an obligation to record business transactions. In addition, the accounting records operational statistics on which business decisions are made.

Accounting is therefore indispensable for every company, but is often perceived as a necessary evil. So bookkeeping can cost you a lot of time, money and nerves.

How accounting normally works

In contrast to large corporations, in which entire departments deal with accounting, the situation is different for the self-employed. You have to decide: Do I do the bookkeeping myself and invest time or do I hire a permanent accountant and spend money in the form of personnel costs. Both time and money are limited in self-employment.

And then the procedure with the pendulum folder. Invoices that are available digitally must first be printed out and then end up somewhere in the folder. This must be available to the accountant by the end of the quarter at the latest, who in turn digitizes the receipts and invoices in order to feed them into his system. This is not only cumbersome, but also time-consuming. Only after the accountant has entered all the data into his system does the business analysis, on which business decisions should be based, take place.

The weaknesses of old-fashioned bookkeeping are obvious. On the one hand, data is only available to you in a simple form, ie if you need data after the folder has been passed on, you have to obtain it from the Cheap accountant in slough - this makes the communication process more difficult.

On the other hand, there is a media break, since digitized receipts are printed out and printed receipts are digitized. The consequences are loss of time and increased personnel costs. As an entrepreneur, you cannot focus on the important things and you find it difficult to make short-term decisions.

How modern accounting should work

Modern bookkeeping starts exactly where the weak points of the old system are. Processes are optimized through digitization and automation and bookkeeping is made easier for you. In addition, no additional staff is required, which saves staff costs. In modern accounting, the accountant is replaced by software in certain areas.

Accounting software can help you out of a dilemma: invest your own time in accounting or spend valuable money on an accountant.

In the short term, you seem to have to pay for costs and time. Admittedly, you need some time to familiarize yourself with the system and for digitization. In the long term, the investments will pay off and the advantages of digital bookkeeping will outweigh them: Personnel costs will be reduced and material costs (paper, toner, printer, files) will be lowered. You receive daily operational evaluations and various systems (document entry, writing invoices, archiving) are combined in one.

Accounting software shouldn't create additional work for you, but should relieve you of work and make many office tasks easier for you.

Switching to modern accounting requires courage and trust in digitization. In addition, you have to rethink your mind because something old has to give way for something new.

What should accounting software be able to do?

In order for software to really relieve you of work and make office tasks easier, it should have appropriate functions.

Preparation of offers and invoices

As a self-employed person, in most cases you create an offer that is confirmed by the customer before you send the invoice. Your accounting firm in slough software should definitely make offers and invoices easy.

The process should be simple, intuitive and fast. In the software, this means stored text specifications that save you the recurring formulation of greetings and closing phrases. In addition, customers and products only have to be created once and selected with a click.

The software automatically creates an offer from the data, which can be sent by post or e-mail or printed out and downloaded.

The same process also takes place when creating an invoice. If you have not converted the invoice directly from the offer, select the customer and product from the integrated database. The digital software does the rest again.

You can create an invoice in no time at all. You can individualize your invoice with additional features such as invoice templates with your own layout, letterhead and in different languages.

Depending on the industry, do you travel a lot as a self-employed person? A mobile app in your accounting software is useful for this because you can create and send offers and invoices anywhere.