Why should you use accounting software?

Hiring a trained accountant can easily set your company back $60,000 or more a year. Using professional accounting software is much cheaper and it doesn't require that much of your time. Spending too much time on accounting tasks is unnecessary since you also need to worry about the day-to-day operations of your business. If you are debating whether or not to use accounting software, here is a guide that may help you make your decision:

Less Time
One of the best features of using accounting software is that it will take up less of your time from the old accounting systems. Accounting is a detailed process. It involves knowing about Federal regulations, state tax requirements, and other complicated calculations. An accounting software program already receives the updates from the Federal and State governments so you are always in compliance with new laws. It also does all the complex calculations for you so all you need to worry about is inputting the numbers and clicking "print."

Accuracy
Since you don't need to waste time doing calculations, human error is reduced. Accounting programs have a high accuracy rate and rarely do you have problems. The only time you may encounter some problems is due to inputting the wrong information on your end.

Most accounting software programs come with a help desk which will walk you through the entire process of inputting customer and employee information. Once you know how to do it on your own, you don't need to use the help desk and it will go much faster. This training method is used to reduce the error rate and improve your accounts.

Easy-to-use
Almost all accounting software is easy-to-use and self-explanatory. Most business owners need to worry about installing the program and then inputting the data. They don't need to spend hours reading an instruction manual to learn how the software works.

Once the software is uploaded, you can customize it to your needs. Most accounting software programs will allow you to save personalized reports, track your receivables, pay vendors, and manage your payroll all within 5 minutes.

Reports
One of the nicest features about using accounting software is the ability to generate practically any report you can think of. You can generate reports within seconds which is quite an improvement over the old method of using spreadsheets and a calculator to crunch some numbers. These reports can be exported into Excel or Word to become part of your annual report. Typically all accounting software programs provide you with the ability to personalize the reports and they will automatically generate them for you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Payroll
Figuring out the percentage to pay the Federal and State governments can get confusing. Accounting software takes away this tedious chore and it automatically calculates the payroll amount for you. It will even send your employees paystubs via email to confirm when their paycheck has been deposited into the bank.

Taxes
The nicest part of having accounting software handle your payroll is that it will be easier to file your quarterly and yearly taxes. All the information will be stored in the right place and it can easily transfer over to tax programs like TurboTax. Business owners simply need to review the information and then they can efile it within seconds. This saves you hours of tedious time spent calculating all the taxes and payroll information. Most accounting programs also come with discounts on efiling if you use their tax program. This will save you about $25 a year on efiling costs.

Make a list of all your company needs and search for an accounting software program that fulfills all of them and will save you hours of time.