Cloud computing the latest trend in software business

Cloud computing means the processing and storing of data in or through an outside server. The benefits of the cloud computing are for example the increase of the computing power and saving the data space in for example the companies own computers. Going into cloud can save also time and money, when the company doesn't have to anymore deal with the software updates or buy expensive licenses for every software used.

Cloud computing offers rather a service than for example a software product. The actual software lies in the service providers servers while the end user uses the software over for example internet connection. The most simple model is to use the software straight through internet browser, such as Google docs or calendar.

Cloud computing enables as well the detachment from location and makes this way more possibilities for home office working – in theory, the end user can be anywhere in the world. In practice the security of connections will make some barriers for free location and it depends on what kind of information is dealt with cloud software.

There are nowadays many cloud softwares and many companies have customized services build specially for the specific company use. The most known cloud service is probably Google, which offers services as well for companies. Google services could actually replace almost all office softwares commonly used in day-to-day office work – it has the e-mail client, documents platform and a calendar, added with instant chat function which is used in many offices. But also such functions as accounting and product testing can work in a cloud as well. In fact, many accounting firms offers these days not only accounting services but cloud software for bookkeeping (in Finnish= kirjanpito-ohjelma) as well. Cloud service can be the most efficient way of organizing the IT functions for big or small companies.

Tips for the starting up a small business

Most of the upstarting companies in Finland are small businesses, run by one or two persons. Small enterprise is usually build around the individual entrepreneurs know-how and profession and usually feature the simplest mode of entrepreneurship, the sole trader. Self employed sole trader is responsible of the business with his personal assets and thus there is no separate juridical unit to respond for example the debts. It is easiest to put up, and probably the easiest one to run in day-to-day routines.

When starting up a company the first thing to do is to form out a business idea and to consider the profitability of the idea. The idea can be product or a series of products, or a service or a whole service concept, which company then markets and hopefully sells as well. After the lining out the idea, the next thing to do is to make a business plan which includes the goals and plans for the future. However, these are not necessary if the company is going to run with entrepreneurs own capital. But as soon as outside funding is needed, such as a loan from the bank or some kind of supportive funding from the government organization, these two papers are necessary.

The company needs to be also registered into the Trade Register and announced into prepayment register to get the company ID and the right for billing. Setting up the accounting (in Finnish= kirjanpito) is important as well since all the companies are obliged to keep records on accounting. The best way to deal with this one is probably to buy the financial management services from some accounting company or from some other self employed accountant. Keeping the records on financial matters can take awful lot of time, especially if the entrepreneur is not familiar in general with taxation and in particular the specialities in taxation of his own field of business. There are many companies offering these services, offering also handy softwares to ease up the accounting even more.

The roots of the modern day computerized accounting

The double bookkeeping with entries for credits and debits was introduced in 15th century by the Franciscan monk and a mathematician Luca Pacioli, who describe the method of Venetian merchants in his book Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalità published in 1494, as a one of the first books published in the Gutenberg press. The book was soon translated and spread all over Europe, and it became the foundation for modern day bookkeeping methods.

However before Pacioli´s masterpiece on different fields of mathematics, a certain Benedetto Cotrugli, citizen of the medieval state of Dubrovnik, wrote The Book on the Art of Trading where he introduced the double entry bookkeeping. It went on print in 1573, almost hundred years after Cotrugli compiled the manuscript and Pacioli published his description on Venetian method of accounting. Before publising it circulated as a hand written document. The reason for Pacioli being held as a father of modern day bookkeeping and accounting can simply be that Cotrugli didn´t have resources for, in those times astronomically expensive, Gutenberg printing.

Pacioli gives detailed instruction on recording barter transactions as well as on several different currencies. The debits were on the left side and credits on the right side, indicating where the income came and where it was spent. Pacioli emphasized precision in recording since otherwise the business man ran into a risk to be cheated by his employers and not be on track of the situation of his business.

Much haven´t change since the Pacioli´s days in the financial management (in Finnish= taloushallinto) – the basic procedure is still the same even though it has gone through slight refinements to make the procedure suitable for the need of the industrial world´s big companies with shareholders located faraway from the actual business. The main change in accounting probably is that in the modern days much of the accounting actions are done by the computers and the whole accounting has gone from hand written ledgers into a softwares and databases.

Some bits from the history of bookkeeping

Even though modern day bookkeeping dates back to 15th century Venice, to a friend of Leonardo Da Vinci, a Franciscan monk Luca Pacioli, bookkeeping has been important through human history. First records of bookkeeping have been found for example on the excavations from the areas of ancient Egypt, and Mesopotamia and from South-Asia. The ancient bookkeeping dealt with cattle, crops, dowries and different trading items, and helped to keep on track for example on the development of the amount of yearly crops. In ancient India every village had their own bookkeeper to hold records on land ownerships and revenues.

Trade increased in Europe by the end of the Crusades in 14th century in such a scale that companies with remote agencies started to emerge. This made the written bookkeeping (in Finnish= kirjanpito) and records necessary, since the business owners needed to know how their finances were doing in faraway places and that their agents in those places were acting honestly. The first record on complete double bookkeeping have been found from Genoa from 1340´s. The already mentioned mathematician Luca Pacioli was the one to write down the complete description of the bookkeeping of the Italian merchants.

The double bookkeeping introduced by Luca Pacioli revolutionized the business and economy and had already the most of the features of the modern day accounting, such as ledgers, memorandums and journals. Pacioli himself stated that by following his Venetian method the business man would always know if his business is doing good or not. Paciolis passages on bookkeeping were soon spreaded all over the Europe and eventually became the model for bookkeeping for the next 500 years. And little has changed since in the field of bookkeeping, the underlying basics still being the same as in Pacioli´s days.

Electronical finance managing

Nowadays the financial management and bookkeeping (in Finnish = kirjanpito)can be handled in electronic systems, which are designed to automatize most of the monetary traffic and this way to ease up the bookkeeping of the company. Aside from making the administration easier, it also frees the resources of the company into the core business. Electronic financial management can as well be a tool for the management when estimating the company´s performance and for example efficiency of the sales or profitability of the products. Electronic management will give day-to-day figures and helps this way also to foresee the future trends.

Automatized bookkeeping and electronic invoice are the main benefits when moving into the electronic finance management. These will decrease the routine tasks of bookkeeping. Also the tax declarations, salary payment, posting the payments and all the bank traffic can be incorporated into the electronic systems. E-bills are handy and economically efficient, and most of the customers are nowadays able to receive their bills in electronic form via different kind of e-billing systems or simply straight into the online bank account. The most of the bigger companies have migrated their accountancy into the electronic form and require also from their subcontractors the same.

The best way to arrange the electronic finance management is to buy all the services from the same place and from the same service provider, otherwise the benefits from the moving into the more efficient system can be lost in the incompatibility of the different systems and softwares. Cloud services are the latest trend in the company software development, and financial management is not exception. Most of the accounting companies offer cloud services these days, which makes the work of the company even more easer, since all the software updates, maintenance activities and license handling is removed from the customer to be the responsibility of the service provider.

Comparing the services of the accountant companies

Starting up a company is a big effort and setting up a business takes time and many working hours. When the business is small, this usually happens as well without any compensation for the entrepreneur immediately, since the fruits of all the efforts will only ripen after some time. Especially self employed people will sooner or later notice how much the whole administration takes time, and sooner or later they start to dream about the old days, when they still were at the service of some established company, whose financial department took care of all the nasty work with taxes and payments and accounts and salaries.

So when the self employed entrepreneur starts to deal with his or her first customers and especially when receiving his or her first payments and writing the very first bills, the first realizations is, that it is just not that simple as to just receive money on your account and then paying your bills. There are taxes, costs, bills, and all kinds of big and small details to take in to account. At latest the first tax declaration form will wake the poor entrepreneur up into the reality of the accountancy. And probably she will finally come into thought of arranging the thing in some more time and cost saving method – since every hour spent on the financial administration (in Finnish = taloushallinto)will take time from the actual business itself.

When choosing ones service provider in accountancy it is good to search for the ones who are specialized in your own field of business. The taxation of for example artistic entrepreneur is a different story than with those who work for example in social services or technology. The price of the accountant isn´t anymore an obstacle nowadays since the accounting is in many ways automatized and works with the help of systems and softwares. Many companies offer accounting systems based on a monthly payment or on the amount of the traffic of the payments. The prices can be as low as ten euros per month, which is quite much less than using your own time when finding out your way through the jungle of accountancy. The latest technological developments involve cloud services, which enable even more efficient communication between the accounting company and entrepreneur or the company.

Finding a good accountant

I started up my company few months ago and by now I will slowly start to realize that a good accountant will not only save my time, but my money as well. Keeping the track on accountancy, earnings and costs, taxes and payments is a mess for someone like me who doesen´t have any routine of even to take care of my personal accounts. Even if the accountant costs some money, it is worth of it when thinking of all the time saved. It´s better use for entrepreneurs talent to concentrate on what she can do best and leave other things to people who know those better.

Besides, using the help of a professional accountant will actually save my money as well – as a writer and a performer I´m really not aware of all the tricks and turns in taxation, and to learn those will take ages and I don´t have that time. I educated myself to write and not to know all that what´s in the law book, but luckily for me and my decisions, someone else decided to choose otherwise. I started up my company few months ago and by now I will slowly start to realize that a good accountant will not only save my time, but my money as well. Keeping the track on accountancy, earnings and costs, taxes and payments is a mess for someone like me who doesen´t have any routine of even to take care of my personal accounts.

So I have been looking for an accounting company to save my time and workflow and got to know that many companies use financial management (in Finnish = taloushallinto ) systems which makes the accountancy even more easier, since the information about the revenues and costs and the whole bookkeeping will go through a software between the accountant and the entrepreneur. There is also available a software which helps to do the whole accounting by yourself, but since I am not a taxation expert, I probably will need services of a good accountant. 

Financial management goes into clouds

While many companies take now advantage of the all kinds of cloud services and even the ordinary text documents are created in the internet environments, also financial management is going into cloud. Cloud services are kind of same as using for example Google documents or -calendar, and the most important tool in the modern day office computer can be the web browser software. The most important advantage is that in many cases it saves money and computer space, and the tools are available regardless of the location. This in turn enhances for example possibilities for home office working and functioning of working groups which members are located in different parts of the world. All you need is a working internet connection, in theory.

Going into cloud means many possibilities also for financial management, when working over the network enables for example straight connections into banks and into the accountancy. This makes automatization of many functions of accountancy and for example invoicing and salary payment possible and frees this way the resources of the company into the things more important for the company´s competitive and business.

There are many kind of options for the electronic accounting systems (in Finnish = kirjanpito-ohjelma) and softwares working as a cloud service via internet and many companies offer software solutions for accounting or use some cloud accounting system in the services they offer. Cloud service based solutions makes the communication between the company and the accountant easier and more efficient. The questions however in the cloud services are lying in the data security, even though service providers are reassuring that the connections are safe. 

The Art of Documenting

When you are setting up your own business, it is important to seek for information relating to all subjects around new business. Maintaining all the gathered information and documenting it is also in high value.

Documentating all the stages you have setting up you business seems to be a huge problem for most people. Documentation doesn’t meen only saving the receipts and bills - it meens reallty documenting the different phases, moods, happenings and events that matter to the business.

It may take some time but it sure is rewarding in the future. And quite often it happens that when you are planning the future you have to take a glimpse to the past.

Documenting the new business in different forms is easy these days. Different softwares makes it very handy to document and save all the phases your business is facing.

You can find different kind of good CRM -softwares that helps you keep on track of every phone call you made, every e-mail you sent, every thought you had and so on. Best CRM’s really have even an idea management tool built within.

Documenting your finances is also very critical. In this field you can find fantastic financial administration (in Finnish: taloushallinto) software like ProCountor and deal with all the documents online. It saves you time and as we all know - for entrepeneur - time is money. Documenting you finances with a proper software is a favor not only for you, but for all the stakeholders as well. When you are using a software like ProCountor you can fetch any receipt, any document, any made deal in seconds. When a stakeholder or a shareholder next time asks for information you don’t have to do it the long way.

Over all documenting can be done in fun, time saving and cost efficient way. Perfect combination of working CRM -software and a financial administration -software like ProCountor makes business documentation really easy.

As everyone knows who have children, having pictures of them from the day they were born till the day they are adults really matters. Consider your business a baby and start taking pictures – now.

Accounting software offers the best possible solution

ProCountor accounting software offers the best possible solution for the companies looking to change their financial management software and switching their accounting agency at the same time. The features in the ProCountor accounting software enable quick communication between the accounting firm and their customer. Usually before moving on to ProCountor the accounting company and their customers have been using different systems. Changing to use the same accounting software (in Finnish: kirjanpito-ohjelma) brings in tangible benefits and allows the accounting company and their customer to focus on their core business instead of managing the software and the financial management systems.

Using ProCountor will save you from transporting physical files from the company to the accountant. With ProCountor the information is transported digitally between the accountant and the customer. This enables the customer to get the information they need when they need it and creating their own reports to follow for example the sales and the costs in the real time. But this fully digital accounting software also helps the accounting company to create quickly and easily insightful and accurate reports to their clients.

Using ProCountor the costs are always based on the use of the financial management software. The accounting company and their clients have all their own log-in information to the ProCountor system. Log-in details can either be personal or one for the whole company. The level of access can be easily managed based on the need of the client and the accountant. With own log in the client can add information to the accounting database. This makes the process of data input quicker and leaner and lessens the risk of making mistakes somewhere along the line.

ProCountor strives to give support for all the accounting agencies using their software. They have a partnership program that enables the partner companies to deepen their knowledge of the accounting software and develop their know-how of the digital accounting in general. ProCountor offers a starting package that has all the essential software bundled in with a very reasonable price. The starting package also includes training by the professional accountants in using the accounting software.

Digital accounting software

We have a small business that focuses on management consulting. We have used a big accounting company (in Finnish: tilitoimisto) to handle our financial administration, but now we are looking for a cheaper solution and something where it would be easier for us to run reports and do analysis with. We have been looking for an online solution for accounting and financial management. The accounting software would need to be easy enough to use that we can run reports with it, or they will need to have a really good and free customer support for the questions! I have been reading about the digital accounting software solutions, like in a cloud of sorts, and I have been trying to find out more information about this.

The software would need to be able to handle all the normal accounting tasks, like salary management and purchase accounting. We'd like it to have support for e-bills and potentially scanning of the bills as well. One of the things that I really like about web-based accounting software is that you can put in figures on weekends and evenings, when we have time, instead of having to book time for the accountant at the already quite busy daytime.

I am concerned of the safety, but we are handling most of our banking online, so why not accounting as well? Also I am concerned of glitches and problems we might have integrating the software with our current computer environment (Windows 7). Also it seems that most of the software on the market is billing per transaction (as opposed to the accounting company monthly billing) and I don't know if this will be cheaper or more expensive than just getting a regular accounting company to sort our accounting. Time saved must be a big factor though, you could just type in a bill and it would be there for everyone to use after that.

Do you have any experiences with different digital accounting software and cloud accounting environment? We are willing to give this a try, but of course it is a hassle to change so we would like to get some recommendations so we would end up using well performing and easy to use software.