Top Benefits Of Accounting Software For UK Businesses

Juliet D'cruz

Updated on:

UK accounting software can bring organisation-wide convenience to your business and has the potential to help you run a more productive team and thereby a more profitable business.  Chances are, you will also have a happier team, thanks to a substantially reduced data entry burden.  UK accounting software achieves all of these because of a handful of truly-useful tools and benefits, such as: 

Receipt scanning 

Most brands of UK accounting software offer you a receipt scanning tool that uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to extract financial data from physical bills, invoices, and receipts. The user simply needs to upload a picture of the document and the system captures dates, prices, and other details, presenting these in the form of digital text. The receipt scanner can also extract data from a PDF or online source. 

The receipt scanner tool can minimise the data entry burden for most departments and processes including accounting, payroll, sales and marketing, supply chain/ sourcing, and inventory management. 

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Error-free data

Because of automated data extraction, the chances of human error in data entry are minimised. A copy of the source document is also retained by the receipt scanner and can be used as a reference for reconciliation and tallying. 

You can also link your business bank account to the software for data to flow seamlessly from your account to your books, further minimising any chances for human error. Especially, if you run a startup or small business, and do not have a dedicated accounts department, this benefit can help you keep track of your business’ finances. For growing businesses, this benefit helps you control accounting costs as your transaction volume grows. 

Efficient data management 

All the data entries generated by the software are sorted automatically by date and type. Your suppliers are sorted by tax and geography. You can also set up a personalised filing system and the software will follow rules set up by you. 

You can also expect error-free data – not just because the element of human error in data entry is minimised, but because duplicates are purged from the system or merged and errors or anomalies in the data are flagged up for corrective action. 

Data insights for better decision making 

With UK accounting software, you no longer need to rely on last week or last fortnight or last month’s spreadsheets. You will be able to make fully informed big decisions anytime and anywhere because you get live, on-the-go access to a customised selection of key performance indicators linked to your business and its finances, inventory, sales, and so on. Your dashboard is fully customisable and can typically be accessed by the free UK accounting software smartphone app that comes with your UK accounting software account. 

Data insights for improved cost management 

Your accounting software dashboard will let you view supply chain spending and automated insights can help you spot supply chain leaks with ease. If you manage to plug these leaks you might be on your way to improved profitability. 

Some UK accounting software types can help accounting and bookkeeping firms to identify which clients are likely to require a higher number of hours of work. They can keep a check on billable hours, thanks to an automatic tool that allows them to instantly evaluate the health of a client’s books. This allows them to offer pricing that justifies their labour costs, overheads, and other input costs for the number of billable hours that a certain project is likely to require.

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Tax insights 

UK accounting software is programmed to sort suppliers according to tax and to calculate, add and understand UK taxes. In addition, the software can help you with insights on how upcoming tax laws are likely to impact your profitability. Smart, agile businesses are able to use these insights to navigate pricing and marketing so as to maintain profitability when the new tax rules kick in. 

Invoicing support 

The addition of UK taxes to sales invoices is usually automated with your UK accounting software. You are also able to customise invoice templates and thereafter, to standardise invoices that can be automatically generated. You get reminders around invoice deadlines and reminders when invoices become overdue. Your clients also get an accounting dashboard that gives them automatic reminders to encourage them to pay you on time. They can also use their dashboard to view past and ongoing jobs being performed by you. 

Accounting software comes with a world of benefits. It is also very affordable for any business – you can upgrade to UK accounting software for as little as GBP 20 for 5 login IDs. Some brands offer volume pricing discounts as the number of login IDs increase. For example, Dext offers 20 login ids for GBP 40 and 30 login ids for GBP 60. 

You can also get a free UK accounting software trial and a free demo from most brands.