How to Keep up With Your Accountant While Working From Home

By now, many business owners have moved their operations from a brick-and-mortar office, to a work-from-home situation.  This raises brand new challenges for keeping up with your accountant to update your financial records, plan for taxes, and keep communication consistent.

Use an Online Cloud-Based Accounting Software

While there are as many options for accounting software, the best and most widely used options are to move to a more remote-friendly environment like Intuit QuickBooks Online or Xero.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is available in three different subscription plans with prices ranging from $25 per month to $150 per month.  All plans allow businesses to track income and expenses, send custom invoices and quotes, connect to your bank, pull reports and give access to our accountant.  

Xero

Xero is a pricier option that also offers three different plans with prices ranging from $20 per month to $40 per month.  Though it is more expensive, a Xero subscription includes a Hubdoc integration feature that can save a lot of time in communication and data entry.  

All plans allow businesses to send invoices, send quotes, enter bills, reconcile bank transactions, pull reports, connect bank accounts, and capture bills and receipts with Hubdoc.

Use Cloud-Based Document Storage and Processing

It may be difficult to just swing by your accountant’s office and drop off your financial records for processing. Instead, you can send documents to your accountant through cloud-based document storage and processing.

Migrating to a cloud-based storage and processing software can help mitigate challenges unique to working from home.

With this software, you can now have a virtual file cabinet in which employees, customers, and vendors can access the documents needed to carry on with business as usual. Below is a list of fantastic options to help store and process documents in a work-from-home setting.

Box

Box is a cloud content management software that provides collaboration securely. The software is available to customers, employees, and vendors on any device. With prices ranging from $5.50 to $30 per user per month, it is a great way to keep all personnel and business contacts engaged with access to the documents they need.

At ProAdvisor CPA, we have found that our clients like the software because it is very secure and provides the ability to custom-build user access to each folder.  In other words, you can make sure that personnel are only able to see and edit the documents that they need to.

Hubdoc

Hubdoc is another unique way to both store and processes your financial documents. Hubdoc is best used to store and process bills, invoices, and customer payment documents. 

In general, a business received many different formats of financial documentation on a daily basis such as bills, statements, receipts, and emails.

When using Hubdoc, these financial documents can be imported into the software using scanners or even your smartphone! Then Hubdoc is able to convert these documents into data you can use. It can export this data to your accounting and ERP software and cut down on data entry time.  

Our clients like Hubdoc because it has syncing features with many applications that allow for automatic document upload and data processing. It helps minimize time spent on uploading and scanning documents as well as data entry!

Use Virtual Meetings to Check in with your Accountant

Though you may not be able to swing by your accountant’s office for a meeting, you can still keep in touch with virtual meeting software like Zoom or Google Hangouts.

Zoom

Zoom is a virtual communication provider that includes video conferences, phone systems, and chat platforms among its many offerings. It has three different plans available ranging from free to $27.00 per host per month. If the word “free” just caught your eye, we should mention that the free option has a 40-minute limit on group meetings but one on one meetings are unlimited.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts is a chat, voice, and video conferencing provider that is included with a subscription to Google Suite. Google Suite has plans ranging from $6 to $25 per user per month.

The Google Suite plan provides more than just virtual communication tools, it also provides a wide array of business software including document creator, spreadsheet creator, presentation creator, email platform, cloud document storage, and more.

Workplace

Workplace is a communication and community tool that provides voice, video, and chat communication as well as a platform to help foster an office environment and company culture. 

It has three plan offerings ranging from free to $8 per user per month. If you try this software out for free you may notice that it looks and functions much like Facebook does. Not surprisingly this application is actually owned and operated by Facebook which explains the similarity.

Even though we are working from home, all is not lost. You can still communicate with us or your other accounting professional through the use of cloud-based accounting software, cloud-based document storage and processing, and virtual meetings.

Set up a virtual meeting with us today to get started!