Big companies have been leading the way: the digitization of accounting. Without any paper and with automated processes, they show how digital transformation can work. In this context, German SMEs are still lagging behind, because the possibilities with which SMEs can digitize their bookkeeping & VAT services slough are diverse. This post reveals five of them as well as the best tips for implementation.
Driving the innovation engine
Medium-sized companies are considered to be the engine of the German economy. They have a crucial impact on the country’s growth and prosperity by creating jobs, training young people and maintaining competitiveness in the world’s markets. Whether small craft business, traditional family business or self-employed, they are all an important cross-industry factor for the economy. Your innovations determine the future viability of all of Germany. One of these innovations is undoubtedly digitization with its many facets. It is an important step that medium- sized companies digitize their accounting.
If you want to keep your top position in the economy, you have to go new, creative ways. Innovative thinking is therefore one of the first ideas with which you can digitize your accounting:
- Rely on a disruption from everyday life
Medium-sized companies do not lack promising ideas. But every day work, ingrained ways of thinking and time pressure act like a brake on digitization. They make it impossible to fundamentally reflect on what already exists, to change it and to dare to take new approaches. That is why many medium-sized companies have so far resisted digitizing their accounting. But now they see that it is time to act and say goodbye to manual, paper-based work in accounting.
- Say goodbye to paper – for good
Here is another bill from the taxi, there is a receipt for hospitality and not to mention all the old bills in the archive. No question about it, paper is still ubiquitous in many medium-sized companies. Something is still coming up somewhere that is definitely not digital. But if you want to digitize your accounting firm in slough, you have to put an end to it. Eliminate paper-based operations completely. Here it is advisable to first take stock. Get an overview of your paper archive and digitize everything that is not yet digital. In the end, you have digitally saved business letters, invoices, annual accounts and balance sheets in a central archive. All you need is a digital document management system (DMS).
Using a DMS can save you a lot of work. This mainly applies to your invoice processing. In general, an invoice can reach your company in various forms: on paper, by email or as a scan. With DMS, the work can be made easier when the invoice is received. Because a digital system for invoice processing captures all incoming invoices regardless of format automatically. An indexing of the incoming invoice immediately prepares the correct archiving. And key data, such as suppliers, invoice numbers or amounts, can be read out quickly and directly by DMS and compared with the order.
- Digitize the accounting using process automation
At the moment, the situation is similar in many medium-sized companies: A number of processes are characterized by paper and isolated software solutions. However, if you want to digitize your accounting, you will not get any further. Because the basis of digital success lies in the connection of all areas of the company to a central system. If all departments, such as production, warehouse organization, sales, purchasing, human resources and accounting, are linked, the communication processes between them are much more straightforward and efficient. No long e-mail distribution lists, no bills wandering around between responsibilities, no processing delays in the event of vacation or illness – this is possible with the digital document management system.
It is important at this point that you rely on a comprehensive DMS that is able to record and process various information from a wide variety of sources. This not only facilitates internal communication for you, but also that with your customers, suppliers and cooperation partners. You should definitely include these when digitizing your bookkeeping payroll management in slough. Flexible interfaces make it possible. Nevertheless, exceptions or errors can occur at any time. That is why a DMS should also be designed to recognize discrepancies immediately. Digital processes should ensure an immediate comparison of all mandatory information on an incoming invoice and identify errors or duplicates directly. A digital DMS not only helps your company to consistently monitor cash flow, it also saves time and eliminates possible sources of error. As you can see, if you digitize your accounting, so will they financial savings are not negligible.
- Remove spatial separations
In order to digitize your bookkeeping, it is advisable to rely on cross-location networking of your business areas as well as on the use of shared software. The spatial distance between employees and departments becomes less relevant and you can create many new work opportunities. Location-independent work teams or a link to employees in the home office create completely new options for distributing tasks. In this way, accounting processes can be distributed more efficiently and processed more effectively – regardless of where your employees are. This means that the entire invoice processing using DMS is much faster. Your whole company will benefit from this in the end.
- Choose the right partner
Digitize your accounting on your own? Goes, but is not promising. In order to carry out the switch from paper-based to digital without great delays and disruptions to everyday work processes, it makes sense to hire a competent partner. They can support you right from the start in choosing the right software and give you valuable and practical tips on your digital document management system in the initial phase of use. So you can count on the success of your digital accounting as quickly as possible.
