Leveraging Technology – Flexible accounting using cloud-based software

During the current crisis, it has never been more important for businesses and charities to have up to date access to their financial information to support them in making important decisions.

Over the last few years we have been supporting many of our charity and not for profit sector clients in migrating their financial records onto online Cloud based systems such as Xero. However, there are many charities in the sector which use manual record keeping or have their financial software based on an office PC.

Cloud based software has the advantages that:

• Staff can access records from home via laptop, tablet or phone, so do not need to come to the office
• There are facilities to set up automatic bank feeds so that bank information is pulled through to records on a daily basis and only requires allocating to nominal accounts, so no need to wait for bank statements to arrive for bank information to be up to date
• Multiple users can have access so Trustees can have a “read only” access so that they can see what funds are available for distribution
• There are facilities for invoices to be attached to entries so soft copies are available for inspection
• Internal controls can remain in operation as there are facilities to ensure that approval controls remain in place
• During the current pandemic you can maintain business as usual

We still do not know how long preventative measures will stay in force, or even what else is on the horizon, but perhaps now is the time to revisit whether a move to Cloud-based accounting software may be the right choice for you.