QuickBooks vs. Accounting Automation Software

Accounting is one of the fundamental tasks that underpin every successful business. Tracking your company’s finances accurately is essential to keeping your business growing and avoiding audits or penalties. More importantly, proper accounting helps every business plan for the future.

However, not every business has a dedicated accounting department. Modern technology has led to the rise of accounting programs like QuickBooks, making accurate accountancy available to all. Innovation hasn’t stopped, either. Today, accounting automation software can help take over your accounting process entirely. Finding the right combination of accounting software for your company is as simple as understanding each service’s purpose.

The Purpose of QuickBooks

QuickBooks is one of the most common business accounting solutions available. There’s a good reason for that: QuickBooks has all the capabilities that a small to mid-sized business could need. It provides an organizational system for invoices, expenses, and every other financial transaction you might need. It is also one of the most straightforward accounting solutions to implement, but it requires some significant accounting knowledge to use correctly.

The QuickBooks service is available in several pricing tiers, from Self-Employed up to QuickBooks Advanced for companies that want it all.

Capabilities

• Sales Invoicing: Every iteration of QuickBooks offers the ability to send invoices to customers. Invoices must be manually entered or copied from previous iterations. Receipts are automatically tracked, however, and the service handles payment processing for you.
• Expense Billing: Running a business leads to various expenses that can be billed to clients or used as a tax deduction. From small costs like mileage to more considerable expenses like international travel, QuickBooks helps you keep track of the expenditure type, the reason, and the amount spent.
• Financial Reporting: Finally, higher tiers of the QuickBooks family of services allow users to generate a range of financial reports, from year-over-year income to project profitability.

Pros and Cons

Pros of QuickBooks

• It’s simple to implement.
• Many pricing tiers appeal to different needs.
• Opportunities for integration allow customization.

Cons of QuickBooks

• Most input is manual, which takes time and effort.
• Accounting knowledge is required to use the program effectively.
• It does not complete tasks automatically.

The Purpose of Accounting Automation Software

QuickBooks acts as a framework for performing the accounting processes your company needs, but accounting automation software takes things one step further. The goal of automating your accounting is to allow your software to perform those processes for you. Well-designed automation will take over the routine procedures that eat up time and effort, so your team can focus on higher-level tasks instead. Best of all, you don’t need previous accounting knowledge to add this automation process to your financial system.

How does this automation work? Through the power of machine learning. The software studies your current coding, approval, and exception processes in all aspects of your accounting. Then it automatically applies what it’s learned to future transactions, saving your team from having to make hundreds of manual entries. Instead, they can confirm the decisions your software has already made and focus their time where it really matters.

Good automation software will include different tiers with sliding pricing, allowing you to access the services you need at the price that makes sense.

Capabilities

• AP Automation: Accounts Payable are the bills you pay to keep the lights on. Good automatic accounting software can transcribe paper bills into your accounting system, eliminate manual payment entry, and even allow your vendors to enter invoices directly into the software portal.
• AR Automation: Accounts Receivable is the money your customers and clients owe your company. Accounting automation software can bill your clients for you and sync with your other systems to verify customer data against the invoices.
• Cash Flow Forecasting: Controlling your company’s cash flow is a vital part of keeping everything running smoothly. Excellent cash flow forecasting your accounting software will develop automatically can help you keep an eye on your overall financial health with ease.

Pros and Cons

Pros of Automatic Accounting Software

• Routine processes are automated, without the need for manual inputs after the training period.
• No accounting knowledge is necessary; once you implement the software, it simply gets to work and starts learning.
• Software organizes a wide variety of information into a single platform.

Cons of Automatic Accounting Software

• It only works as well as your underlying system, which means your practices need to be consistent.

The Benefits of Using Both

Automation accounting software and QuickBooks, or programs like it, both have their places in a well-run business. While QuickBooks acts as an organization system and collection point, automation software can take care of all the repetitive, tedious tasks that QuickBooks often requires.

Accounting automation software can work within the framework of QuickBooks, handling all the individual data entry tasks that would otherwise make up the majority of accounting. QuickBooks provides the clear, reproducible guidelines that your accounting automation software needs to learn your systems efficiently. It also offers a stable system that’s frequently integrated into other accounting programs, so you can rely on it to work well with the automation service you choose.

Finally, the most valuable benefit for many companies is how automation can minimize the need for in-depth accounting knowledge. Once your QuickBooks systems have been used correctly for a while, the automation software can train on those transactions and run many accounting operations without intervention.

Give Your Business Every Advantage

If your business is growing or if accounting processes regularly cause you headaches, it’s time to take the next step. Implementing accounting automation software can help you cut the time and payroll expenses of manual entry busywork. More importantly, it can ensure the kind of accuracy that usually comes from hiring expensive full-time CPAs. Your company benefits from better accounting, and your employees no longer need to waste their time entering every piece of data manually.

Whether you want a complete solution or you’re looking to augment the technology you already have, there’s no reason to wait. Cratosys can help. Our state-of-the-art accounting automation software is easy to integrate with QuickBooks, and it can save you time and money. Reach out today to learn more about how we can help you simplify your accounting operations for good.