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How Your Accounting Department Should Work



What if you could have an accounting department that was easy to work with? What if you asked for something and got it right away without any hassle? No sighing, no complaining about how hard it will be, just quick and easy. What if you could get reports you wanted automatically e-mailed to you however often you wanted? Or, if you could see a dashboard on your phone with your most important metrics in real time? How about if expense reports were a piece of cake to submit and just as easy to review and approve on your phone. What if you only got the expenses you actually needed to approve sent to you in the first place and delegated someone else to approve the small stuff and what if they could use their phone to easily approve things?

Who wins more than you in this scenario? Your accounting department. Look, I’ve worked with a lot of accountants (I AM an accountant and I have the degrees and certifications to prove it!) and they almost all like helping people, but most accounting departments have poor systems and processes that make it hard for them to do that. You just want to get the information you need, but you have to fight one of your own departments for it. They want to help, but they are fighting a system that doesn’t work, just as much as you are. Although a lot do, not every accountant wants to help. If you have one that truly doesn’t want to assist you, someone who just likes to exercise their power and rule over people, then you have an HR problem.

Here is what should happen. Your business development or executive person is at lunch with a client. When the bill comes, your team member snaps a photo of it on their phone, types a quick memo on who they ate with and they are done. Software reads the receipt (even handwriting) and fills in the important information. Then, someone from accounting quickly and easily views the receipt, makes sure everything is going to the right category, and clicks approve. Next, whoever else in your organization needs to approve that expense, approves it on their computer or phone. Last of all, the charge is automatically imported into your accounting system—no data entry needed—with a copy of the receipt attached and saved forever in your system in case you are ever audited.

This sounds great, but isn’t it expensive? It costs a lot less than you might think. Then why doesn’t everyone do it? Three reasons. First, this isn’t even on most people’s radar as a possibility. Second, people don’t like change and need a strong leader to guide them through it. Third, the actual design of a system like this is complex and for it to accurately work, it takes someone with experience setting these up.

Most people won’t modernize their accounting department, because they think how they already do things is good enough. Due to this, they miss out on the benefits - but not you. You risk comfort for the sake of profit. You see the big picture and know that the benefits here go way beyond just saving money or getting your monthly financials done faster. This revolution is all about saving time throughout the organization and it’s about giving you access to the information you need to make better decisions for your company.

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