On line Bookkeeping. Why I was converted !

I believe that I am fairly open-minded when it comes to Technology. I do my shopping and banking on line. I own an iphone and love a good app but there was one area that I just couldn’t bring myself to adopt and that was on line bookkeeping.

I am not even sure why, now, looking back but I had a major issue with it. Perhaps it was because the websites I had tried in the past weren’t very good.

I, like most accountants I know, thought, until recently, that Sage was the pinnacle of book-keeping for small business. Not necessarily the organisation with their constant need to upgrade each year and ongoing cost of support but the product was as good as it got, or at least I thought so.

The Power of Linkedin

I wanted to know what my clients and other accountants thought of on line bookkeeping so I posted the question in groups on Linkedin.  Overall most people were positive and a few people suggested Xero and a few other solutions. I trialled these and I felt Xero rose above the other packages available.

I have now been using Xero the online bookkeeping package now for 60 days and I have to say I am converted for several reasons.

• Xero uses automatic bank feeds which means transactions are automatically imported and matched to invoices and accounts. Posting the transaction becomes a case of checking and clicking OK. This reconciles the bank and posts the transaction at the same time.
• Then there is the joy of being able to produce an invoice from wherever you are in the world and emailing it directly from within the package.
• Another feature that makes online bookkeeping so valuable is collaboration. Offline accounting systems make it difficult to help, support and check on my clients data.
• On line bookkeeping removes a real barrier between accountants and clients and allows real time access to clients bookkeeping. This means that problems that may have been stored up in the past can now be dealt with much sooner.

We have found Xero perfect for clients where we do the bookkeeping, no longer are they reliant on reports we run once a month they can log on at any time to check our progress what’s more clients can use the facility to raise invoices directly via their access saving the need for them to send us copies of the invoices.

Finally moving over to Xero from an offline package couldn’t be simpler.

We are now Accredited Partners of Xero so if you want a demonstration and a chat about how we can help please give me a call.