It is a big change in "Scaling New Heights" when so many General Ledgers, aka, accounting apps, appear on the exhibit hall floor. For those long-term attendees, it is as if the curtain has been drawn back and the wizard has revealed a variety of communities.
While I may not make an appearance at this year's conference, I can at least tip my Stetson to each of these sponsors by writing fairly comprehensive and applicable reviews.
Because of the relative length of each of these reviews, there will be no more than two or three in each article. That means there will be at least three parts to this mini-series, which may not appear in sequence, but may be interlaced with other sponsor-topical content.
Murph
AccountingSuite™ is a cloud-based software providing accounting, inventory, order management, bank-reconciliation, project and time tracking and even ecommerce functionality.
This mid-market product, which is powerful and flexible enough to support a wide-range of businesses, provides anywhere access for employees, business owners or their accountants needing to make critical decisions.
The AccountingSuite™ Companies feature enables you to manage all your contacts in one place—both customers and vendors. You can easily check current balances, terms, invoices, orders, payments and receipts. In addition, you can create new invoices, orders, payments or receipts.
Its Sales functionality is designed to give businesses flexibility in managing all aspects of sales orders and customer service transactions while simultaneously shortening "order-to-cash” across any business.
One key feature of the sales functionality is something called, Sales Pal, which is designed to help Sales personnel make informed decisions when working with customers.
It lets you manage the purchasing processes with streamlined purchase orders, inventory receipts, vendor invoicing and supplier refunds. Rather than require a business to conform to a single way of doing things within the software, there are a variety of purchasing workflows designed to meet the needs of any business.
AccountingSuite™ manages inventory with advanced features, including Multiple-location tracking, Assemblies/bills-of-materials, Price-matrices, Lots and Serial Numbers, Landed Cost and Complex Units of Measure.
Its inventory system can track multiple warehouses as well as classes, projects and user-defined hierarchy that goes far beyond warehouse level.
The inventory features include light manufacturing capabilities using Assemblies/Bills of Material. Its Bill of Materials defines components in the final product included in your inventory once produced. Assemblies may contain sub-assemblies.
It not only tracks the cost of raw materials, but also labor, waste,and residuals associated. And it can disassemble to any level of assembly any assembly it has created.
AccountingSuite™ offers both a Landed Cost feature to allocate costs—like freight, tariffs, insurance, customs, currency conversion, crating and ocean transport—into your costs of goods sold. It also has an Advanced Units of Measure (UOM) functionality to maintain inventory controls based on the way your inventory measures vary in purchases and sales.
Another sophisticated inventory feature is its Price Matrix, which allows a complex pricing structure for items that gives a business granular control over pricing.
The Cloud Commerce feature makes it possible to connect to your online store or ecommerce aggregator/shipping manager using ShipStation. Your business orders then flow from your website and automatically are recorded as sales orders, shipments, invoices and cash receipts within your accounting data.
AccountingSuite™ offers you project management with features such as project and time-tracking for costs and profitability on work being performed. Project reports reflecting revenues and expenses along with profitability give you a dynamic understanding of your business operations.
Regardless of the capabilities used, the inventory features are integrated into both the Sales and Purchasing functionalities to provide real-time inventory quantities on sales invoices, vendor bill payments, credit memos (vendor or customer), purchase returns and inventory adjustments.
By connecting AccountingSuite™ to your bank and credit card accounts (something they can do with thousands of banks and credit card companies), your transactions will flow automatically into your account records.
For purposes of receiving payments, it offers integration with Stripe for credit card processing. Cash Receipt or Cash Sales can be processed by clicking the Stripe button. For security reasons, the credit card number is only stored by Stripe.
It offers multi-currency capabilities. Financial Reports can reflect applicable multi-currencies. Multi-currency reporting includes the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, A/P Aging, A/R Aging and General Ledger reports.
AccountingSuite™ also offers two Sales Tax tracking and payment options. The first is a built-in Sales Tax feature incorporating a payment function. The second is AvaTax (Avalara's subscription based service).
The always-on audit-log tracks all accounting data changes, including the users making changes along with the date and time of each change. The system administrator can set a closing-date for the company books to prevent changes to any accounting period on a global feature basis.
AccountingSuite™ includes a large number of standard Reports. In addition, there also are a variety of integration options. An integration with EazyBI provides powerful reporting, charting and dashboard capabilities.
Its integration with Zoho Reports, a powerful online reporting and business intelligence service, offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface enabling in-depth analysis and reporting. Both EazyBI and Zoho Reports are third-party products that are not included with AccountingSuite™; they must be acquired separately.
AccountingSuite™ offers a Partner Program for Accountants & Bookkeepers that allows it to stay involved with its clients using the product. In fact, all versions of the product (except write-up) include unlimited CPA/Bookkeeper seats so users can let their professionals have access to their company file(s) at no extra cost.
If AccountingSuite™ sounds like an alternative general ledger that fits the needs of one of your clients, or you think you should consider a referral arrangement or becoming a Partner, head over to its booth in the conference exhibit hall.
For more information, you can visit its website.
Zoho Books is a comprehensive cloud-based accounting system with included features you would otherwise be required to App in (add-on) by subscribing to from a third-party vendor if you were using almost any other accounting software at the same price level.
Zoho gives you a wide variety of options that will fit almost any business situation regarding money-in. It even gives you the ability to provide your customers/clients with access to their records (of your choosing) right inside your accounting system—no external portal programs are required.
So, for example, you can share an estimate (quote) with your customer via its portal and capture a digital signature when they approve the project. And yes, Zoho makes it easy to control and manage multiple projects and invite various timesheet users who do not otherwise need access to Zoho.
Zoho provides nearly effortless invoicing and receivables management. In addition, you can send customized statements to your clients and receive payment in multiple currencies. Zoho makes it easy to collect deposits and advance payments such as retainers for professional services or down payments on merchandise.
And the payment portal allows clients to make partial, full or bulk payments of multiple invoices with a simple click-n-pay process.
In addition, Zoho offers integration with the most popular payment gateways.
- Send professional-looking invoices reflecting your brand
- Get paid faster by offering your customers multiple payment options
- Automate follow-ups, so you never have to chase customers again
- With multi-currency support, you can charge customers in their currency and record the sale in yours
- Use recurring invoices for regular services, and set up secure credit card payments for your customers
- Zoho can validate transactions before processing them, including digital signatures
- Process retainer invoices for advance payments
- Manage refunds and returns as easy as the original sales transactions
Zoho gives you the option of totally do-it-yourself sales tax functionality that works, or fully-integrated Avalara Sales Tax (AvaTax) so you know your sales tax forms will be filed right but guaranteed.
- Associate taxes with contacts and set the tax preferences for each item when you create it
- Record your tax dues and reconcile the transactions right within Zoho
- Maintain a clear record of the tax payments made and which tax authorities you have paid
- Zoho Books offers you consolidated reports ready to be exported and filed at tax time
- With the optional AvaTax integration, your sales tax liabilities are calculated in real-time, so you always know your tax liabilities without any calculations
Your vendors/suppliers will appreciate that Zoho Books gives them direct access via a Vendor Portal to stay up to date with purchase orders, their bills and their payments that are due.
In addition, Zoho's PO feature allows you to track every purchase from the moment an expenditure is planned to the time it is committed and when the related products or services are received.
- The portal allows vendors to get a consolidated view of all their transactions
- Cut unnecessary emails and phone calls with an AP and Invoice management portal for your vendors
- Get notified when your suppliers view your transactions and comment on your documents
- Suppliers can upload their invoices directly through the portal, which can be added as bills to Zoho Books
- Suppliers can check payment status and stay updated without contacting you
Zoho's inventory tracking will keep tabs on your stock levels and value your inventory using FIFO. Its Cost-lot tracking makes it possible to see your stock on hand and its current valuation.
In addition, Zoho offers you the ability to add landed costs so you can calculate the total cost of your items and determine the correct selling price.
- Organize inventory with SKU, product image, vendor details, cost and stock-on-hand
- Zoho's inventory tracking keeps tabs on your stock levels at all times
- Customized pricing with markups or markdowns by preferred vendors or customers
- Set reorder levels and get alerts before stock levels dip below your minimum
- Select preferred vendors for specific items to have Zoho send purchase orders whenever stock levels are insufficient
- Stay informed with detailed inventory records for both quantities and valuation
Zoho tracks your day-to-day expenses easily. Whether you are making a one-time purchase or reimbursing an employee for out-of-pocket costs, you will have all the details and flexibility you need for cost categorization and customer and project accounting.
- Keep track of your outlay, from the office supplies you purchase every month to employee per diems
- Track expenses, categorize them and bill them to your customers when necessary
- Create a recurring profile for regular expenses and Zoho Books will automatically them
- Attach your bills and receipts to transactions. Zoho's auto-scan feature will fetch the vital information from your documents, eliminating duplicate data entry
Zoho lets you set up your bank accounts and import your transactions. You can import your bank statements directly and skip the data entry. Use rules to categorize your banking transactions and reconcile transactions to stay tax season ready.
- Securely fetch transactions from your bank and PayPal accounts
- Get precise cash flow predictions—plus balance mismatches, expected recurring payments and past reconciliations using the Zoho Banking Dashboard
- Use bank rules to filter and categorize transactions automatically, so nothing slips through the cracks
- Zoho identifies the best matches for each transaction, making reconciliation a breeze
- With thousands of transactions, bulk actions make it easier to select, categorize, delete and restore multiple items
Today, business is all about being anywhere. That means you need access to your accounting system on your mobile device 24-7.
And that is why Zoho Books offers an excellent mobile accounting and bookkeeping app for small businesses. With the Zoho Books mobile app, you will know how well your business is performing through a KPI dashboard.
In addition, mobile payments have never been more manageable than with this app because it offers secure, convenient access to multiple payment options fitting your needs. You will monitor your expenses and bills, and easily move money between accounts or out of your business.
And when you are in the field managing a big sale, you can create and send a branded invoice to your customer practically before you finalize the deal.
Finally, just as conveniently as if you were in the office, you can generate key financial reports to know where your business stands even though you are on the go.
And just like we were discussing the importance of critical financial data in the field, there is nothing more important than converting your accounting data into meaningful financial reports.
Zoho Books contains a simple to use reporting engine that lets you generate reports with the data you need in the format you want and associate tags to help you filter your data to get the specific information you are looking for.
In addition to these 50-plus built-in reports, get even more advanced analytics with Zoho Analytics, which lets you convert your data into actionable insights.
Zoho lets you set up user roles for each individual and give them permissions right down to the specific data they can access.
These are just a few of the highlights of the features that Zoho offers. But, if your interest has grown, head over to the Zoho booth in the conference exhibit hall to find out more.
You can also point your browser to the Zoho Books website for additional details or to sign-up for a 14-day free trial.
Zoho is a proud sponsor of Insightful Accountant's 2022 ProAdvisor of the Year and Top 100 ProAdvisor Awards Program.
Acknowledgements and Disclosures:
Portions of this feature, including graphical artwork contained therein, have been adapted from content used from the vendor (sponsors) website (or other related sources). All such source materials within this feature by Insightful Accountant were adapted and are furnished solely for educational purposes.
As used herein, QuickBooks refers to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc., a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California. Intuit QuickBooks and the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program are proud sponsors of Insightful Accountant's 2022 Top 100 ProAdvisor and the ProAdvisor of the Year Awards.
Scaling New Heights is a registered trade name of Woodard Events LLC of Canton, Georgia. Scaling New Heights is a proud sponsor of Insightful Accountant's 2022 Top 100 ProAdvisor and the ProAdvisor of the Year Awards.
Any other trade names used herein refer to products that may be registered, trademarked, or otherwise held by their respective owners; they are referenced for informational and educational purposes only.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. None of the vendors within this article have paid Insightful Accountant or the author any form of remuneration to be included within this feature. The article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
The publication of this article, nor the inclusion of this product within the related series, does not represent any endorsement by either the author or Insightful Accountant.
Like what you're reading?
Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and we'll deliver content like this directly to your inbox.