Moving your business to the cloud – 4 Myth busting good reasons to do so

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Shaper Accountants

We have lots of Xero bookkeeping and accountancy clients from all over the UK and many in East Anglia.

Some clients were already using Xero when we met, and some were not. Some were using spreadsheets or server based systems like Sage 50.

Here are 4 myth busters that will help you decide to move your bookkeeping and accounting to the cloud.

Check out the 4 most common reasons people give for hesitating about moving their bookkeeping to the cloud. We help you see the advantages cloud accounting gives you.

Number 1 – Cloud what? It doesn’t add anything to what I already have

Running a business can be stressful, and when you add in family responsibilities, falling behind with friends, domestic matters or interests – suddenly time, or the lack of it, comes into sharper focus. If only you could create more time and get more done.

If you are always out on a job, like a plumber, or any business where you go to the customer you’ll find that cloud accounting enables your mobility. You can login and send invoices, add contacts or check payments. You can even take payments on the go, that are fully connected to your accounting software. If you buy items, on the go, you can take a photo with your phone and send the receipt straight to your bookkeeper – Job done, time created.

We estimate that we save 2.5 minutes per bookkeeping transaction, by asking clients to use the Receipt Bank app to send us their bills, receipts and parking tickets. Clients save all the time they used to spend on doing the bookkeeping themselves.

When it comes to needing more family time, cloud bookkeeping comes to the rescue. You can send invoices, bills and receipts for expense claims by phone app while the dinners cooking – leaving you stress free to play with the children and read the bedtime story.

Say hello to your very own Time creating solution

Number 2 – I can’t learn something new and my staff definitely won’t!

OK, to engage and use cloud business tools and apps you need a few skills and a few items. You need;

A smart phone – Apple works best with most business apps. Android is getting better.
A laptop, computer or tablet
Internet Access
Social Media
Tip – If you have an office team member to do the bookkeeping or admin – buy an Apple iPod. Download the Receipt Bank App and snap away. It’s cheaper and less contentious than giving someone a phone.

If you have any experience of any of the above, we can teach you how to manage your business on-line with cloud accounting and bookkeeping. Having trained hundreds of clients, we know small, bite sized, learning tips will get you the end result – time creating, efficient, up to date accounts – giving you advantage over your competitors.

Tip – On line you’ll find lots of free training videos for all sorts of cloud accounting software – search on You Tube to see how others can help you.

Say hello to your very own leopards that can change their spots, to get ahead

Number 3 – Cloud Accounting costs too much

Most cloud bookkeeping products are paid for by a monthly fee, with the flexibility to stop the payments whenever you want, like if your business dries up or you switch to another product. The software updates are included and happen seamlessly. Most server based products are a one off upfront cost plus the cost of periodic updates.

You can free trial most products and add them onto your accounting software – Xero or QuickBooks Online – with ease. That way you create a bespoke solution for your company.

Tip – really have no cash? – There are some free bookkeeping products available, with limited functionality, but they do the job if you have time. In the early days of business, you may well have time or if you have a partner who has time to help you, this isn’t a burden. When you start making profits time will be the one thing money can’t buy you.

Even when cash is tight you will appreciate and value the fact that you never lose a receipt again, that you can snap pictures of business items and your bookkeeper has them in hours. The opportunity for more accurate and timely cash flow forecasting is suddenly an option for all cloud bookkeeping clients.

Say hello to creative business tech solutions that works for you – scale up and down and you have technology on your side – to suit your budget.

Number 4 – I don’t trust the Internet with my data

Most professional Bookkeepers and Accountants take data security very seriously and we only work with cloud software providers who do the same. Internet banking is now the norm, but when it first came along many didn’t believe it would ever catch on. Sometimes holding out for the tide to turn back, can be a long wait, and while you wait others take your customers and win new ones.

Here’s a few tips to make sure you are secure;

Whenever you have the option to set up two step authentication for sign ins, do it. You’ll need a mobile phone for this. Tip – check out Google Authenticator
Ask your bookkeeper or accountant if they are registered with the Data Protection Office – or check yourself. That way you know they will treat your data with care.
Ask which Institute regulates your bookkeeper or accountant – so you know they have integrity and follow the rules.
Check out the software provider’s own attitude to data security too.
Have good password habits
Keep software up to date. Tip – with cloud based software the updates happen and don’t take your time up.
Educate you whole team so they all know the signs of malicious emails and work at protecting your business online.

This is what Xero have to say to reassure customers

This is what Receipt Bank have to say

It’s time to get on board, my friend and take a seat

The Internet has revolutionized the way most of you do business, making you ever more connected with the rest of the world – new markets, suppliers and customer, all buying from you, on-line. To gain courage and understanding check out places like Barclay Eagle Labs where Digital Eagles can help you learn about protecting your business from unwanted cyber attention.

Ask Cloud Bookkeepers and Accountants for demos of software and make good use of the many free trials available, have a good look, then leap.

You can call us, Skype us, email or Tweet us for a tea and tech session to help move you forward.

death_to_stock_communicate_hands_4 — Follow us on Twitter @ShaperAccounts

Family-Friendly Accountants

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Shaper Accountants

Need a Family Friendly Accountant?

Once it’s August have you noticed how the business and social landscape changes around you? It’s a challenge to get to the shops through a sea of young faces and teenagers, and the office seems to empty of a few key staff.

Many small business owners have children or carer responsibilities. Or you may have staff with a family – and once the long school holidays start, doing business as usual can become impossible.

At Shaper Accountants we have family friendly working policies and ideals, and absolutely welcome you with, your children at our offices – especially during the school holidays!

Many modern working practices make it much easier to work around children, or with children around.

We use cloud accounting software to allow our team (and you) to work anywhere you can access the internet, and at any time. We love using Skype to catch up with you, whether you are at home, or out and about. Communication is key – phone, e-mail, text and Skype mean many of you can run your business from anywhere.

If you need to see your Accountant or Business Adviser, child care can become an issue. In many cases mobile communications and on-line access to your accounts can fix that problem. But if face to face and coffee, is what you need, you can bring your youngsters with you here, in Norwich.

Attitude is Everything. Once you accept that we live in a world with all kinds of people in it, and you think creatively, it is possible to help business parents, staff with families, mums and dads to get on with doing business, as well as spending time with family.

We understand that work and family are not mutually exclusive.

Why is it important to be a family friendly firm? Because talented parents are able to pursue career ambitions rather than sacrifice all that went before children – skills and talent stays in business, the culture of such firms is improved and for practical reasons it just makes sense to support those who juggle family and work. If it’s possible to have flexible working arrangements then it’s possible to make it work.

There are lots of guides to support business parents. Here’s one from Xero about home-working productivity.

Why automating your business processes is good for you

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Shaper Accountants

Business apps and business software have become more easily accessible and affordable than ever before.Many of the barriers for you, as a small business owner, to buy tech that solves your business problems have been removed.

You can now run your business from your mobile phone, tablet or laptop – and you can do that anywhere there’s wi-fi.

So what’s automation all about and what are the benefits?

The big thing about software and add-on apps, is that it now leads to process automation and big business benefits for you.

It saves you time – you pack more into your days
It results in efficiencies and that leads to more profit – that’s why you run a business
It reduces human error – think accounts on Excel spreadsheets or forgetting to record who you’ve chased for money.
It makes your business scalable – as and when you make changes, you’re ready to go.

Quick wins when thinking about business processes

Accounting Software

Every business keeps accounting records, and all the latest talk is about which software you use that’s a big talking point around Norwich and the rest of East Anglia. Xero is simple to use and helps streamline your accounting so you can get more done.

We are Xero fans and Xero experts – that’s well known.

But what makes Xero useful for business process automation?

As your accounting system it holds masses of business information, not just numbers, but contacts and interactions with contacts.
Xero has an open API (application program interface). If that means nothing to you here’s the impact for your business – it means that there are now hundreds of business apps that seamlessly add-on to Xero to give you powerful, integrated business processes – and at affordable prices, and all with free trial periods before you commit.

It’s the combo of software, good data and automated processes that is key to seeing automation work for you.

For example, Xero lets you set up on-line Quotes, so customers can accept on-line or comment and when the deals done you’re automatically ready to invoice them.

It’s the Xero Add-ons that give you extended automation and competitive advantage.

Here’s a few tried, tested and liked by us

ReceiptBank – Is data management software. You get the App on your phone and take pictures of your paper bills and expenses. The key data is extracted, plus the image and it’s all pushed through to your accounts in Xero. This saves hours of manual data entry and no more worries if you lose the paper copy. Our automated bookkeeping service uses Receipt Bank, or you can administer it yourself.

Simple real time cash flow management leads you to Float. An easy add-on to Xero at a low monthly cost compared to the power it gives you to forecast cash flow into the future and in various scenarios you set up – much less dependence on Excel spreadsheets – and good easy to read graphics as well.

Satago and Chaser – These guys automate credit control. Satago goes deeper and credit checks all your contacts. They automate e-mail reminders to late payers and they thank your customers for paying. Masses of time saved and less stress about making contact with slow paying customers.

SalesForce – they automate every interaction you’ve had with all your contacts, making it easy for staff to use one system and one approach – everything is recorded in one place.

E-Mail marketing Add-ons like Constant Contact help you create good looking templates that can sent to customer or prospect groups when you need them – they’ll even create a brand match e-mail template based on your web site and logo for you!

Add-On apps like Work Flow Max bring detailed project or job management even closer, link it to Xero and when it’s time to bill the project you’re ready to go. The benefits for you are, job tracking and budget management as well as keeping an eye on scope creep.

Having an automated overview of your prospects results in you making good decisions about what to send them and when.

Documents stored in one place

Having all your documents in one place, available at any time means super efficiency gets even nearer. Saving you time, cutting out duplication and cloud systems are becoming the norm.

Microsoft Office 365 puts Word, Excel and PowerPoint on-line so you can access documents anywhere.

If you’re more of a Google fan, Google Docs gives a similar offering and we find this preferable to Office 365. You’ll find what suits you best.

Google, Dropbox and Microsoft all offer cloud storage. This puts all your work documents on a remote, secure server where all staff can work on them, anywhere. This means no back-ups, easy access and collaborative working, as well as flexible work base solutions.

Don’t forget all you documents relating to business can be securely stored in Files on Xero. This means everything you need, like insurance documents or contracts can be accessed 24/7.

The big deal about office automation is that things can happen on time, in the same way and with less human error. Improvement efficiencies will bring you improved profits, and improved capacity as well as clarity of processes. An automated business model is scalable, meaning it can grow as you need it to – and you can often go further for longer before you increase staffing costs.

So, the more tasks you can automate the quicker your business will be able to expand with minimum outlay, minimum fuss and faster than competitors with legacy processes and systems.

We’re ready to talk Xero, talk about how we can help make your accounting life easier and more automated. To talk to us about how cloud accounting software for small businesses can help automate and streamline your business processes, get in touch with us.

Cloud Accountants in Norwich, East Anglia and beyond.

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Cloud accounting and Xero experts

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Insight and intelligence from Shaper Accountants

Category: Cloud Bookkeeping