QuickBooks Online The Best Small Business Accounting Software

New York City small business owners, from retail shops, bars to restaurants are making a fundamental shift to using cloud-based accounting software that allows them to access bookkeeping business data from anywhere via their mobile devices. In fact, research from Emergent Research, which tracks technology use by small firm’s notes “…almost 37% of small businesses are ‘fully adapted’ to cloud-based applications.” He expects that to increase to 78% of small businesses by 2020.

There are several cloud-based bookkeeping software systems to choose from such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, Zoho Books and many more.  Business owners want accounting software solutions that are affordable and relatively easy to use.  It’s important that the system you choose has time saving features to help take the headache out of small business accounting.   

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online is the most popular and widely used choice. They are a household name with an 80 to 90 % market share. QuickBooks Online offers a wide range of features for all types of small business, including consultants, freelancers, online e-commerce merchants, bar and restaurant owners. The learning curve of setting up all the features can be confusing to many business owners.

Why is QuickBooks Online used by so many Restaurants and Small Businesses?

A restaurant’s success can depend a lot on having an effective back office bookkeeping system setup, and QuickBooks online accounting software can be a crucial part of that outcome. QuickBooks is used for bill paying, automated entries, purchasing, tips tracking, cash management, gift certificates, bank reconciliations, payroll, financial reporting and advanced tasks like data syncing with Point of Sale (POS) systems.

However, small businesses that choose Quickbooks for their accounting will need some training on how to properly setup and use QuickBooks to meet the needs of their unique company.  Meet with an accountant on a monthly basis to ensure your customized QuickBooks setup is running correctly.

Scott Aber is a QuickBooks Certified Pro Advisor who helps restaurants and other companies clean up their QuickBooks accounts and make sure everything is working correctly. For larger restaurant chains or stores we can customize it with many advanced options and features to help your scaling business grow. Here are a few reasons why it is the most widely used accounting software.

Affordable Pricing  

QuickBooks has the necessary software accounting features for many types of businesses.  The cheapest plan starts out at only $9:99 per month, which is limited to only one user.  Even with this plan you, can you easily manage your finances, with features such as built in financial reporting, track income and expenses, automatic data backups, download bank and credit card transactions and preparing year end tax filing.  

The Ease of Use

For the most simple features it not hard to get started with using it,  like connecting credit cards and banks accounts from the dashboard, as well as setting up operational data such as vendor payment info, new hires etc.   

The dashboard is the place where you will access your data. QuickBooks updates its dashboard periodically, and provides new interfaces.  The navigation consists of a side menu and top navigation bar.  The beauty of the dashboard is it gives you snapshot of your restaurant’s financial status in ‘real time’  with an overview of cash flow, paid and overdue invoices, expenses and profit and loss reports. This lets you see the financial health of your business whenever want.       

It has Time Saving Features   

Most business owners want accounting software that will save them time and not add any more stress to managing financial aspects of their business.  QuickBooks Online easily answers this problem.   

The benefits of using QuickBooks is that it is designed to automate as many tasks as possible in order to make record keeping and accounting less stressful and less time consuming. Forget manual bookkeeping, the software will automate bill payments, recurring invoices and syncing your financial data with all your credit card and bank transactions.  Another useful feature is being able to automatically categorize and reconcile (which eliminates tedious, time consuming manual input of each transaction)  QuickBooks also has built in reports that make it easy to create and analyze financial reports for your business.

QuickBooks has out of the box add on integration features with over 150 third party apps, such as those designed for payment processing, email marketing, time tracking, outsourced payroll, and many more. This can streamline many processes by allowing you to automatically sync, export and import data in ‘real time’ with other business support services.      

Customer Service 

Customer support is an integral part of any business solution, and Intuit has not skimped on investing in it.   QuickBooks offers both phone and chat support, which you can access directly throughout the QuickBooks website. But if you’d like to troubleshoot problems yourself, there are also several resources that can help: a Learn & Support knowledgebase, a small business resource center, the QuickBooks blog, and a community center.  Also you can speak a trusted Quick Pro Advisor for one on one training about learning how to use the software or saving your business money on taxes.      

Conclusion    

QuickBooks is an intuitive bookkeeping solution, but many restaurants and other businesses, still make mistakes and need help with properly setting up all of the other customizations that are needed to handle all the periodic bookkeeping tasks such as loan payments, inventory adjustments, allocating insurance premiums evenly during the year, creating customer invoices, paying your sales tax, dealing with charged tips, handling employee meals, bartered services, and the list goes on.  

Aber CPA provides tax saving strategies and QuickBooks support services to restaurant owners and other small businesses.

Call me at (845) 215-5969 to speak to a certified public accountant or fill out my simple contact form.