INTRODUCTION. 1. You have an archaic accounting system, designed for a business that does not necessarily match your needs.

Transcription

1

2 INTRODUCTION As a successful entrepreneur you know that managing cash flow is key in order to move your business forward as a result, having a real-time view of cash flow in your business is absolutely critical. Unfortunately, you often might feel as this is an impossible task primarily because: 1. You have an archaic accounting system, designed for a business that does not necessarily match your needs. 2. You simply don t have the time to spend managing your tedious day to day accounting instead of focusing your creative talent on what you love doing. This lack of time coupled with ineffective accounting technology can result in sluggish growth, higher accounting fees, and potentially unnecessary higher taxes. Cloud accounting can help you regain control of your finances, streamline your accounting process, and provide greater access of real-time data anytime, anywhere and on any device. This guide will explore some of the major benefits of cloud accounting, discuss our preferred accounting platform, some of its most important features, and how cloud accounting can make you more efficient and profitable

3 CLOUD ACCOUNTING OVERVIEW What is cloud accounting? Cloud accounting is the use of online accounting software to manage the business financial records, data is stored on remote servers and accessed through any internet connected device rather than stored on a computer physical hard drive. investment in data servers, ongoing system maintenance and expensive overhead costs. Which cloud service provider is best for my business? There are many cloud accounting providers in the marketspace today however, our accounting firm used exclusively XERO for its highly secure data infrastructure and powerful features. How secure is cloud accounting? Xero stores all of our clients accounting information on highly secure corporate grade servers, with system redundancies and continuous backup in different data centers located in multiple geographical areas. This approach allows your business to mimic the same data security and data redundancies enjoyed by large multinational companies without the huge capital 1

4 THE BENEFITS OF CLOUD ACCOUNTING FOR YOUR BUSINESS Traditional accounting software have the following limitations and problems: The data in the system isn t up-to-date and neither is the software. Costly charges associated to accounting backups. Upgrades are expensive, and time-consuming with little to no help from customer support. 4. Everything runs online, there s nothing to install and everything is backed up automatically. 5. Upfront business costs are reduced version upgrades, maintenance, system administration costs and server failures are no longer issues. Five ways cloud software benefits your business: 1. Clear overview of the business financial position in realtime. 2. Multi-user access makes it easy to collaborate online between different members of your business, and your accountant. 3. Worry-free maintenance means you can spend more time doing what they love rather than worrying about accounting. 2

5 REAL-TIME CLOUD ACCOUNTING PUTS YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR FINANCES Benefits of the Xero Dashboard: Xero allows you and our firm to collaborate in real-time as we work and view the same financial information in real time. At a glance, Xero provides important information related to your business health including: A summary of your bank accounts balances. Visibility of how much money you have coming in and going out. A watch list of important accounts that need to be monitored. Expense claims that need to be reimbursed. Ability to drill down information at the transaction level. Better visibility of cash flow. All relevant business information in one single screen. 3

6 INVOICING AND BILLING WITH EASE Cloud accounting allows unparalleled benefits when it comes to invoicing and billing in fact, our cloud accounting platform allows you to generate invoices quickly and efficiently from virtually any device. In fact, most of our clients often invoice for their work while on the go using their tablet or smart phones. Invoices are branded with your business information and beautifully designed With Xero you can: Schedule invoices to be automatically generated on a regular basis saving the tedious task of re-keying recurrent invoices. Set automatic reminder when invoices are overdue. custom branded invoices directly which can be paid by your clients directly online. View at a glance Invoices owed to you, and Bills you need to pay. Quickly identify overdue invoices and bills. 4

7 POWERFUL REPORTS ALWAYS UPDATED Cloud accounting allows both you and our firm to generate realtime financial reports which are always updated and available. This is an essential ingredient for greater collaboration with our firm. For our Clients: The ability to quickly run projections, providing us essential information for ongoing tax planning. To identify ongoing opportunities to minimize our clients tax liability. The Xero cloud accounting powerful reporting feature allows: The ability to generate comprehensive Financial Reports easy to understand for the non-accountant. Real-time information about the Balance Sheet, Income, Expenses, and Cash-Flow. The ability to export all reports in PDF and Excel format for presentations or further analysis. For our Accounting firm: The Xero reports allow: The ability to analyze our client s financial records to see if your business is meeting financial goals. To support our clients in identifying ways they can maximize their business performance. 5

8 HOW POLARIS TAX & ACCOUNTING CAN HELP We believe that Accounting doesn t have to complicated or boring, instead we think it should be simple and beautiful. Creative entrepreneurs understand that they need to outsource their accounting to a professional accountant so they can focus on their craft however, the old fashion way of outsourcing accounting meant that clients were often left out of the loop when it came to understand their finances. Cloud accounting has revolutionized the way we manage your accounting, allowing for true collaboration between our clients and our firm. Clients see what we see in real-time, as a forward thinking progressive accounting firm we have fully embraced cloud technology and forged a strong working relationship with Xero. Today we help our client s transition their accounting to Xero, collaborate and maintain their accounting data, help business owners better understand their finances, and finally help our clients minimize their tax liability using real-time accounting information to implement tax mitigation strategies throughout the year. 6