Small Business Accounting

Being a Small Business one of the biggest problems I faced was trying to get a handle on my finances. I had a few requirements,

• ONLINE - I wanted my accounting service to be online because I am a small business I'm often in different places. Therefore if/when I need to make a purchase I need to know what my account balance is.
• CREATE INVOICES - I needed to be able to create invoices from anywhere, whether I was at a client, on the road or in the office
• CONNECT WITH BANKS - I needed the service to be fluid and NOT create extra work having to enter infdividual account transactions (then I would hire an accountant, right?)

The traditional form of small business accounting was purchasing a copy of Quickbooks from the local retailer and have that installed on my desktop in the office. That worked for the first 2-3 years except I was unable to create invloices from anywhere. I would then procrastinate or forget about invoices and that creates issues for a small business. Not to mention the fact that it was hosted my local computer that meant that I could only check my account statements when I was in the office. Not to mention the hard disk crashed (importance of backups?). Overall not a good solution for me. 

 

What did I start to do? I started to think outside the box and think what I wanted. I stopped listening to what other people told me I wanted. Paradigm Shift. 

 

The first place I looked was obviously Google and the searched for accounting software. Most of the solutions I found were labor intensive (I had to host the software on my server) or they were really expensive (Quickbooks Online - $20 a month, really?). There were other commercial solutions, I wanted / needed something low cost because I am a small business. 

 

I then started poking around the Google Apps Store for small businesses. What is that? After Google starts to host your domain and your email (confused, email me) you will have access to the Google Apps for Business. There are literally hundreds of companies that offer business services, ERP, CRM, Accounting, sales, tracking, note taking teleconferencing, phone, and many others. Inside here I found a few different services that worked well for me. I eventually settled on Wave Accounting. 

Wave Accounting gave me the ability to connect to my banks, import transactions automatically, and then create invoices. 
There are other reports I can create but for now it is all I need.

I am not paid or endorsed by wave accounting, I am just sharing my experiences.It took me a awhile and I like to share.