Online Accounting
Pictur: Accounting Illustration |
Accounting in USA has seen lots of change. There was a time when the accounting was more of book keeping done in huge ledgers and was the purview of select few.
It’s not so anymore. Accounting is much more widely accepted
as a business function and general people also look for the accounting details
of the firms they are associated with.
Also lot more transparency is required now. Keeping in line
with the development of IT and other technologies, the accounting is also now
based on internet and has taken wide strides.
Online accounting services, viewed as merely experimental
only a few years ago are now becoming the run away business.
As such accounting industry as been little slow to adopt the
newer technology and has not left fully its love for the pen and pencil work.
The SU accounting industry has seen new trend of outsourcing
its work now. All these have forced the industry to adopt the Online
Accounting. The internets as well as other technologies are used now to build
more efficient book keeping systems.
Also it’s becoming more cost efficient for larger firms to
outsource the work. Outsourcing is very much easier with work being delivered
online. It’s much more cost effective as well as fast also.
The shift from the practice where clients paid the
accounting firms as per the billable hours to a fixed fee based system is
forcing the accounting firms to deliver efficient work in cost effective
manner.
This means that they can not any longer cover their
inefficient work by merely putting in more time into the projects. This has
favored the Online accounting practices much. Value billing has forced
accounting professionals to become more efficient.
Read more: Online Accounting Degree - Expenses & Payoff's
Online accounting very effectively cuts short the time taken to transfer the time taken by information exchange between the clients and accounting firm. The seamless transfer is far more efficient and much faster.
The accounting firm has dynamic access to the sourcing
documents of the clients firms and can access anytime any information it
requires from its clients side.
The online accounting system also allows the accounting firm
access to client data from far away locations at the a few clicks on the
internet. The time sensitive financial data is readily available to the
accounting firm.
Other then the speed and cost of services, online accounting
enables better customer service and more reliability and trust.
Accounting firms recently have been exposed as in cahoots
with some very big clients, committing serious financial crimes. In this
scenario the new practice builds more transparency also.
The online accounting practice also provide for more timely
communication between the firm and clients.
Since the client has more immediate access to information
and to time sensitive documents with Online Accounting practices, questions and
problems can be more easily identified and resolved. This translates into
increased profits as well as happier clients!!
Since the clients get better service, they get more value
for the money they spend. It is generally quite cheaper for the business owner
to outsource the bookkeeping and accounting than to hire and supervise it
in-house.
Savings for the business owner can be as much as 30% for
some clients! Online Accounting is great for such services.
The accounting firms also charge now a fee (fixed on a
monthly basis) almost five times the average monthly fee (based on billable
hours) they charged earlier.
Generally the various online accounting processes available
are customized for their users where they can choose the menu of features they
like.
Online Accounting is an excellent tool for accounting and
book keeping, one that is help full for both the accounting firms as well as
the clients. (*)