As a business owner, it’s easy to get bogged down in some of the minor details or tasks that go along with keeping a business operating efficiently. Bookkeeping-related tasks, for example, are necessary to complete, and yet the amount of time they take out of your day can quickly add up.
Your energy is better spent on other areas of your business operations, so it is important you find ways to get those tasks off your plate. Working with a third-party bookkeeper is a great way to do this, as is finding ways to automate some of your bookkeeping tasks.Here are just a few examples of some of your bookkeeping tasks that are the easiest to automate:
- Expense reports: There are tools that can make it easier for you to manage your expense reporting, sending reminders to employees to submit receipts and expenses and then tracking them for you. Automation tools for expense reports will take these receipts and automatically generate reports that you can integrate withyour bookkeeping.
- Invoicing: Invoicing and tracking payments can eat up a lot of your time if you don’t outsource or automate. QuickBooks has functions to allow you to automatically generate and send invoices, and you can use other tools in conjunction with QuickBooks to track who has paid and who hasn’t. After a certain amount of time without receiving a payment, you can send out automatic reminders.
- Payments: You can automate your payables so your vendors will be paid on time on a regular basis, directlyfrom your account. This makes for just one less thing you have to worry about doing manually.
- Inventory tracking: Depending on the kind of business you have, taking inventory could take days. There are tools you can use to cut down on the amount of work you need to put into inventory management through smart automation. Applications for inventory management can integrate with barcode scanning software, meaning scanning will automatically result in sales reports, invoices and packing lists and make it easier for you to track when you need to reorder certain items.
- Payroll: Payroll taxes can account for some significant administrative strain. By automating payroll, you can drastically cut the amount of time you have to spend on bookkeeping tasks each month. Automated tasks can include automatically calculating your payroll taxes and creating paychecks instantaneously. The accuracy of automated features also helps you to avoid tax penalties.
- Recurring payments: If you have customers who pay you the same amount every month, week or quarter, you can set up an automated payment system for them to ensure the money comes in at the exact same time and to make payments more convenient for both of you. QuickBooks has this functionality built-in, as do PayPal and Square.
Interested in finding more options for automating your bookkeeping, or taking the bookkeeping strain off you as a business owner? We encourage you to contact us at MCG Solutions for more suggestions.