Accounts payable and receivable: Tracks money owed by the company to creditors or suppliers (accounts payable) and outstanding money owed by clients to the company (accounts receivable). 79% of users rate accounts payable and 77% rate accounts receivable as critical or highly important features.
Improved team collaboration: Users value centralized access to financial data, which simplifies review processes and enhances team productivity. It ensures that tasks such as reviewing bills and financial statements are done faster, as there’s no waiting around for someone to send files.
Supports growing small businesses: Users find accounting software really valuable for supporting and growing their small businesses, especially all-in-one solutions that have everything needed in one place, which can be ideal for startups. This means you can add new features to the software without any trouble as your business gets bigger.
Operational difficulties are a direct cause of negative sentiments for most reviewers of accounting software. Slow connectivity, system lag time, and glitchy updates disrupting workflow are common issues highlighted by users. These challenges are exacerbated when customer support is slow to respond or provides ineffective solutions.
Many users, particularly from small businesses, also raise concerns about the pricing. Nearly half (47%) of prospective buyers looking for an accounting solution are already using an accounting tool but considering switching providers primarily due to affordability issues, closely followed by insufficient functionality.
To effectively tackle these limitations, you should seek product demos, and reach out to advisers before making a purchase. Alternatively, nearly 45% of accounting tools listed on Capterra offer free trial options, letting you fully test both basic and advanced features on your own to find the right fit.
Most businesses that contacted us for accounting software in the last two years are owners of businesses with less than $1 million in annual revenue and small teams—five or fewer employees and software users. Among the businesses we spoke with, non-profit organizations (15%) and accounting firms (9%), including independent certified public accountants (CPAs), are the top two buying segments of this software.
Based on analysis of our extensive reviews database, we’ve identified that the three most common integrations for accounting software are payment processing, payroll, and CRM. By integrating with these popular systems, users can enjoy automated flow of financial information from multiple sources into one centralized accounting system.
Most (68%) buyers prefer integrated accounting suites instead of standalone bookkeeping solutions. Such all-inclusive solutions cater to a breadth of accounting needs, such as billing and invoicing, expense tracking, and payroll, leading to faultless connectivity between different business operations.
Artificial intelligence’s expanding role in accounting: Businesses are feeling confident about using artificial intelligence (AI) in accounting. In a Capterra survey, 80% of SMBs report seeing positive ROI from implementing AI solutions in finance. Generative AI-enabled systems can assist in reading, evaluating, and summarizing long legal documents and financial statements. As AI’s ability to analyze volumes of data improves, it’ll become more valuable for accountants. If you want to have AI-enabled features in your software, inquire with your existing providers about their plans to implement AI and ML technology in their products.
Increased focus on data security: With cyber threats growing in sophistication and frequency, buyers are prioritizing software vendors with strong security bona fides. Handling money and sensitive data is at the heart of the finance industry, so look for software providers that offer strong data integrity features to reduce risk to business and prevent downtime or disruptions.
Surge in demand for advisory accounting: Despite automation and AI simplifying routine tasks, human judgment and initiative remain central in finance for strategic decision-making (say, choosing the best inventory valuation method) or complex problem-solving (say, interpreting tax laws for your situation). Recognizing this, businesses are looking for accountants who can use these tools to supplement their insights and deliver strategic advice of high value.
Capterra adviser call notes methodology: Findings are based on data from telephonic conversations that Capterra’s adviser team had with small-to-midsize businesses seeking accounting tools. For this report, we analyzed phone interactions from the past year. Read the complete methodology here.
Capterra Shortlist: Capterra Shortlist identifies the top products in our software categories based on a proprietary blend of user ratings and popularity. We featured the products with the most reviews at the time of Capterra Shortlist publication. Read the complete methodology here.
Capterra reviews data: Capterra reviews are collected from verified users for individual software products. For this report, we analyzed reviews from the past two years as of the production date. Learn more about our review verification process.
Operating any business is challenging. As a business owner, you have to wear multiple hats, and the last thing you want to worry about is keeping track of every single receipt. Thus, it is understandable to overlook the accounting function as you are trying to balance your time as much as possible.
Undoubtedly, the ultimate goal of a company is to earn a profit. To do that, a company needs to improve its bottom lines by increasing its revenues and improving efficiency (or reducing unwanted expenses). As an owner, effective accounting practices let you make strategic decisions and better understand where resources go.
Both accounting and bookkeeping essentially have to do with numbers and figures. Bookkeeping simply means keeping track of all your financial records. Accounting is a more complex process that requires you to interpret those financial records to pay the right amount of tax and make accurate decisions based on the company's performance.
Both practices are vital to any business. The bottom line is to keep a good record of all transactions. Moreover, if you have investors or you are trying to acquire a business loan, you may need to prepare detailed financial reports with easy-to-understand figures. Thus, this is a factor to keep in mind when deciding which practice to carry out in your business.
Accounting SoftwareThe accounting method comprises rules that companies must follow when reporting their revenues and expenses. In some cases, like in the US, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires businesses to diligently follow one method to refrain taxpayers from manipulating their reports and minimising their tax burdens as a result.
Cash accounting: the simplest and most common method for small businesses. Typically, this cash accounting immediately records all funds that come in and out. For example, when a bill is paid, it is recognised as an expense. Or when you receive money from the clients, it is recorded as revenue.
Accrual accounting: this method helps businesses obtain a more accurate picture of the current situation. It records transactions as they are earned and incurred, not when the funds come in or out. In other words, a sale order is accounted for as revenue despite no actual money has been received yet. Accrual accounting is used by the majority of accountants globally and is the recognised standard for GAAP and IFRS (EU) accounting. Though complex, this method offers a long-term overview for you and investors to make informed decisions.
Once you have identified the type of accounting method you want to follow, another factor to keep in mind is determining what sort of financial records you want to keep track of, this could encompass everything that shows income, expenses, deductions, or credits.
Documents and receipts should not be tossed after entering into your accounting system or reporting to the tax agency. In some countries, the law requires you to hold on to these documents for at least a couple of years, which is one of the reasons why the accounting department generates loads of paperwork and needs dedicated storage space.
General ledger: once all transactions are posted to the chart of accounts, they are then summarised in the general ledger, which is then used to produce a trial balance. General ledger features debits and credits - a commonly seen double-entry bookkeeping method.
Financial statements: a set of three statements that give you a summary of all financials: the balance sheet (showcases a company's net worth), the income statement (describes the financial performance, or profit and loss, during an accounting period), and the cash flow statement (demonstrates how much cash was generated and distributed).
A steady cash flow brings more juice to carry out your projects and keep the company running. Cash flow bottleneck is one of the most common challenges that most businesses face. Staying on top of your finances and cutting back on unnecessary expenses are not enough if you do not account for unexpected events, such as a natural disaster or an unexpected lawsuit. Even minor, one-off expenses might also consume a large chunk of your funds.
Most businesses also overlook the payroll and tax aspects. These are both vital and unavoidable to any business. Nevertheless, these tasks are time-consuming as tax requirements vary based on a multitude of factors, and payroll procedures are too complex to be handled in-house.
These matters can quickly become out of hand if you are manually keeping track of your financial information, optimising cash flow, figuring out the number of tax deductions, paying your staff plus other critical tasks. You need a dedicated system to handle the daily accounting issues, especially when your business starts to grow.
There currently are a variety of promising solutions to choose from in the accounting software market. It is easy to get overwhelmed as you go through and evaluate each solution to find the most suitable one for your business.
Thus, what are the must-have functionalities in accounting software? These are the basic ones you should keep in mind, but also note that there could be very few solutions that have all of these features as well as match your specific needs and budget.
In the era of Industry 4.0 today, technology has become so advanced, and there are countless cloud-based and user-friendly solutions created to enable us to automate mundane tasks as well as allow us to access timely data whenever and wherever.
Typically, Infor SunSystems is used for larger-sized corporations, but with its latest rendition, SunSystems Cloud, it can be deployed in the cloud to accommodate a wider client network. Furthermore, SunSystems is now part of Infor OS, which brings you endless integration possibilities with other Infor and non-Infor applications to suit your needs.
FreshBooks is one of the most-talked-about cloud accounting apps, which is capable of streamlining tasks like invoicing, organising expenses, tracking and following up with clients, and more; all can be done via its intuitive dashboards. The solution also comes with a mobile app, which allows you to tab into critical financial insights practically anywhere.
Affordable is what describes this web-based accounting solution. QuickBooks Online offers all essential, mobile-friendly tools to carry out your daily accounting tasks from recording expenses to creating your own branded invoices, reconciling bank and credit transactions, and many more. It also allows you to generate reports based on your preferred data to easily grasp insights into your performance.
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