Small Business Financial Software

Archive for May, 2010

We used to use Small Business Accounting from Microsoft, but that product is no longer available and we are unable to locate our install disks. Any suggestions would be really appreciated! Thanks in advance .
Sorry, I forgot to mention free or very inexpensive, we have a very limited budget for software as one of the businesses is a non-profit, and the other two are very small, limited income.

Thanks .

Ninetowns Reports Second Half and Full Year 2009 Financial Results
BEIJING, May 27 /PRNewswire-Asia/ — Ninetowns Internet Technology Group Company Limited (Nasdaq: NINE) (“Ninetowns” or the “Company”), one of China’s leading providers of online solutions for international trade, today reports its financial results for the six-month period and full year ended December 31, 2009. Second Half 2009 Financial Highlights — Total net revenues were RMB51.1 million (US …

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I need to do a financial plan for my family inlcuding retirement savings, accounting for various estimates of inflation. My accountant says Quicken financial planner v2 was good, but it can’t be found anymore. He also says that the financial planning capabilities of Quicken aren’t adequate.

The main two types of accounting process i.e. accounting payment and accounting receiving are always same. It doesn’t matter to the size of the company. Since this process deals with cash so it should be treated with extra care. Though in this generation there are lot of modern gadgets like online bill payments, which save the company’s employees from long tiresome paper work for making invoice but it could not remove it totally. “Still today 80% invoice is done on papers” says the Aberdeen Group research report. This count is more for small business.

Features of Account Data Capture Software

Account Data Capture Software developed by different companies like Kofax , ReadSoft , AnyDoc and Abbyy converts all the paper based invoices, checks, bills, and other documents into data to sent to the accounting or ERP systems. This software has really increased the efficiency of the accounts department of big companies. But small company cannot use this software because of its price and other problems which a large company can bear.

Reason for which small businesses are not using automatic account data capture software

Beside Software cost other factors are:

1. Software License fee (User based or CPU based access)

2. Hardware upgrade for proper interface

3. Employee training

4. Maintenance and support of Software

You should have proper interface to run the software. So you have to check your system by the vendor. Moreover if scanning is done from hand made documents on the scanned paper then error may occur. Vendors still embraced OCR and ICR technologies into their product to capture the account data accurately from the scanned images. Thus there is a long way to go to remove manual entry.

Remedy for Small business companies

These companies can outsource their data securely through Internet to different offshore vendors for different account process. For more details on read Cybelink Secure BPO

Main advantage is we can use existing infrastructure to do all this. Even these companies donot have to change their way of management. Only change is per scanned images will be converted to accounting software or ERP system

After receiving the scanned images, some typical tasks performed by the

offshore vendor which are listed below:

1. Using automated and manual process to extract all the data

2. Hardware upgrade to install the software

3. Insert this extracted data to small business accounts software

4. Perform other accounting operations like Invoice preparing, Bill payment

5. Export the work from the accounting software to a file.

6. Send the file to the small business to import it into their accounting software for verification.

Small business companies can import the finished files into their accounting or ERP systems for verification. Cost of the paper document reduces by 50% if offshore vendors are given for accounting process. Small businesses need to overcome issues like like offshore security and offshore outsourcing cultural issues . Thus by effective cost small companies can also get valuable services.

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Business Briefs
Business Briefs Credit union event CREST HILL — More than 20 credit union executives, volunteers and chapter legislative forum representatives held a dialogue session with U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson , D-Crete.The event was hosted by NuMark Credit Union in Crest Hill and moderated by Will County Chapter of Credit Unions’ Bill Tierney . Issues discussed included: interchange fees, financial …

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Learn about budgeting, forecasting and reporting solutions that are easy-to-use and deliver exceptional ROI. Our business budgeting and forecasting software enable users to budget and forecast revenue, expenses, personnel and capital assets in a single, comprehensive solution.

Managing the finance of a small business calls for the development of a system that is reliable. Whether you manage the records yourself or you hire someone to do it for you, it has to be a system that you believe in. The management system not only looks into how you use the money in the business, but also at how you finance it.

The financial system should also encompass accounting and financial reporting, budgeting, risk management and insurance issues as well. While you could decide to handle the records personally, you should have an external accountant who handles the tax returns on your behalf. The accountant could also handle the reporting tasks for you. For more efficient financial record keeping, you can make use of the software packages specifically made for bookkeeping and accounting.

Financial systems should act as a measure for identifying, recording and communicating financial information about the business to stakeholders. In this regard, since you do not want to give the wrong impression, be sure that the bookkeeper who compiles the information which goes into the system does so in the correct manner. The accountant, who analyzes the data should be availed with the correct software packages. In fact, they should be in a better position to advise you on which ones they are.

While setting up your financial system, you should take into consideration the risk involved therein. The most recommendable system is one that minimizes on the risks. If possible, take up insurance and health policies against your property, office, equipment as well as employees.

A number of questions are asked by clients either before purchasing or after downloading the accounting software. Many of these questions and the answers are the same the most typical of which are produced here.

Why is the monthly profit and loss account not updating from the sales and purchases entered.

Updating the profit and loss account in the financial accounts file is automated. If the financial accounts file is not updating automatically the links from the sales accounting spreadsheet and or the purchase accounting spreadsheet are not working. This may be because the file names have been changed which breaks the links between the files.

The most common reason is the way the files were originally saved when initially downloaded from the website by opening the files first before saving them. When a file is opened first before saving the computer stores that file in a temporary internet folder and changes the links to temporary links within that temporary folder.

When that file is then saved it is those temporary links which are being saved and not the original links. Those temporary links would not be recognised by the other files which form the link structure. The solution is to delete the files and save the files again direct to your accounts folder without opening them first thereby preserving the original links.

Accounting entries on sales and purchases appear on the profit and loss account but do not appear on the list of expenses on the self employed tax return.

The self employed tax return required to be completed in the UK is dependent upon the sales turnover. Small business with total sales income exceeding 64,000 pounds for the financial year ending 5 April 2008 are required to complete the full self employed tax return while businesses with a turnover under 64,000 pounds may complete the short version of the self employed tax return.. Coincidentally the threshold is the same as the vat threshold.

In addition if the sales income is less than 30,000 pounds then it is not necessary to complete all the individual expense classifications. The excel formulae within the financial accounts file automatically fill in the short or full tax return and only fill in the detailed expense classifications if required to do so.

Does the package produce my quarterly vat returns when a vat flat rate scheme is being operated.

The user guide contains notes on how to enter the value added tax flat rate percentage on the sales bookkeeping spreadsheet. The bookkeeping single entry of the flat rate vat percentage on the sales sheet updates throughout the package including the subsequent months on the sales sheet and also each month on the purchases bookkeeping spreadsheet automatically calculating value added tax at the flat rate percentage and expenses value added tax paid on purchases at the zero vat rate producing a quarterly vat return.

Does the self employed accounting software package produce a balance sheet.

Producing a balance sheet is optional for self employed small business and not an essential requirement of completing the self employed tax return. The self employed package is based upon single entry bookkeeping and does not produce a balance sheet which requires double entry bookkeeping while the limited company package does produce a balance sheet as it is a legal requirement for a limited liability company.

As the self employed accounting software includes sales and purchase spreadsheets and also cash and bank spreadsheets it is possible to manually produce a balance sheet if required but the accounting software does not produce it automatically.

Do I purchase a new software package each financial year or can the accounting software be updated for more than one year accounts.

As the accounting software and payroll packages include the current financial year tax rules that enable the financial packages to automate the production of that years tax returns then each year has new tax rules embedded and being on excel rather than an accounting database then it is necessary to purchase a new accounting or payroll package each year.

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