Will Collaborative Bookkeeping Lead You to a QuickBooks Alternative?

When it comes to tax time, many small business owners are uneducated about their own bookkeeping. It’s not all their fault — they do the best they can by following their CPA’s advice,  saving receipts and invoices throughout the year. But entrepreneurs are busy, and they don’t have tons of free time to meet with an accountant.

Some get by with legacy software like QuickBooks, but bookkeeping is not their forte nor their passion. It’s clear that cloud accounting software is rapidly becoming the only acceptable alternative to QuickBooks. Through all the ways cloud accounting can help grow your business, one of them is making all the difference in the world of bookkeeping: Collaboration.
I know some of you might be asking “What is collaborative bookkeeping?”
In the old days, there was a process business owners went through when communicating with their accountant. One party did their end of the work, while the other end awaited a response to get started on theirs.

 

This is one of the greatest disadvantages of QuickBooks, and it’s why many businesses are making the moving their accounting to the cloud.

With collaborative bookkeeping, clients and accountants can work together in real-time. Now, I know this isn’t necessarily a new concept, but there’s a twist: When I work with my clients, I use the internet as the backbone of our communication.

 

As a business enters a transaction, an accountant can simultaneously view the transactions and even make adjustments accordingly. This ultimately reduces time spent in meetings (and in the car on the way to meetings), which in turn keeps information more up-to-date and leads to more timely reporting.