Technology has impacted almost every aspect of our lives; it has brought about a large number of welcome changes in every profession including the accounting industry. Integrating technology in accounting processes helps companies to derive the best values and generate new opportunities. Technology enables the use of accounting software to provide a high level of automation that makes it easy to enter data, process documents, produce receipts and make payments automatically. It provides for continuous development of accounting software and systems and improves information collection and stores data in encrypted form thereby providing data security.
How Technology Helps Accounting Industry:
As technology progresses, accountants and financial professionals adapt themselves to understand these new systems to provide the best customer service. Accounting technology has replaced the desk job of number crunching for accounting and taxation with the use of computers and systems to perform accounting and financial analysis effectively. Technology helps accountants to release the excess work burden and concentrate on adding value to the business to provide better and informed financial advice. Technological advances in accounting like cloud computing saves data on the server which ensures that data can be easily retrieved from any place and at any time and important client files are always available for quick retrieval.
The Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in companies opting for work from home for employees was another eye-opener for all, it was at these times when people working remotely were totally dependent on technology and internet connectivity to carry on their day-to-day accounting tasks. This proves that embracing new technologies, systems, and solutions is the only way forward in the accounting industry. As technology moves at a fast pace it is important to stay abreast and quickly adapt to the new developments in accounting technology.
The future is very bright for the accounting industry along with the use of technology for advancements. A quick look at the most promising accounting and automated tools will provide better clarity about the role of technology in the accounting industry in the coming days;
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP):
Strategic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are now available in almost every organization. These systems integrate various departments of the organization into one software program and make it very easy to obtain any information and support operations across the organization. The performance of ERP systems lies in the fact that they can be used by all the departments right from finance, manufacturing to information technology (IT) and Human Resources (HR). It provides a full picture of the entire organization’s operations at any given point in time. This is very useful for accountants and financial professionals as they can easily evaluate the organization’s past, present, and future financial positions and make better decisions that are favorable for the organization as a whole.
Cloud-Based Accounting:
Cloud-based accounting helps organizations to use online accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, RealBooks, and others without downloading or installing them to your system. This ensures 24×7 access to these accounting tools with the help of the internet. Cloud-based accounting enables organizations to manage data centrally. Backup of data is easy and happens continuously as long as you are connected to the internet and the data is encrypted ensuring total security. Cloud-based accounting can be managed both online as well as offline, giving users absolute ease and convenience. When accounting will be easily managed at any time and any place convenient, there is no doubt that more and more organizations would be embracing cloud-based accounting.
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Usage of online applications in the Accounting Industry:
There are a number of applications available in the market that are making an accountant’s life easy. Take for example Xero’s App Marketplace which integrates data from various other connected applications and makes accounting easy or applications like Jirav that help you prepare financial models, make forecasts, comparisons of actuals and budgeted expenses, provides employee-related data, trial balances, etc just at the click of a button. These applications can be easily accessed on mobiles and computers making it very comfortable and easy to process data and information without going through numerous files manually thereby saving a lot of time, effort, and money. This is indeed a welcome change especially for small organizations who look around for means to reduce their staff cost. Using these types of advanced accounting applications can help them achieve the same or better level of efficiency and performance.
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Data Analysis and Forecasting:
As financial data is secured and easily available as and when desired, management of data and analysis of the same for present and future benefits of the organizations becomes easy. Organizations can easily generate reports and financial statements that would show the financial position as on date. Such relevant and updated reports help in quick decision-making. Due to globalization, many accounting standards are now standardized across countries and the new accounting systems are regularly updated with these changes. As organizations are now spread across different countries, the top management can easily access all data, records, and statements; And learn about the organization’s performance and take corrective actions quickly.
Technology and automation have touched almost every aspect of the accounting industry and the process still continues in areas like taxation, audits, payroll, cash flow management, etc. The systems are taking care of the menial and repetitive jobs and leaving ample time for analysis and reporting. Hence, technology is surely going to change the future of the accounting industry and how accounting services are delivered.
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Over to You:
As technology is advancing, organizations are always on the lookout for service providers to help them with these changes. Diligen is one of the best financial and accounting service providers in the Industry who helps their clients to easily migrate into new accounting systems. Our team of dedicated financial professionals and accountants has vast and diverse industry experience making it easy for us to serve both small and large clients. At Diligen we believe in evolving along with the technology as it is very crucial, both for us and for the success of our clients. We take pride in keeping our team of professionals and experts up-to-date with the latest technological changes. This helps us to serve our clients in the most effective and efficient manner and at the best price.
Our team at Diligen assists clients in the automation of their existing processes and implementing new accounting tools and techniques. We also train our clients’ employees so that they do not face any issues while using the accounting system, tools, and techniques. For those clients who do not have in-house staff, Diligen steps in to be their accounting partner who provides them with the latest accounting services and keeps them at par with their other peers in the industry.