When you set up your company, you might have found that accounting software was not necessary.  A basic spreadsheet was enough to manage your accounts and keep an eye on incomings and outgoings. You now might find yourself in a position where your business has grown, and keeping your accounts on an Excel spreadsheet for example is too slow, time consuming and actually not comprehensive enough to give you the state of your business finances instantly. You will also find that it is impossible to keep track of invoices, payroll, VAT, tax and cash flow projections. You now need access to information immediately to make informed business decisions. So, it’s time to switch to a robust form of accounting software. In this article from Relativity, the business technology experts with a base in East Sussex, we look at what accounting software is, its benefits and key features.

What is Accounting Software?

Simply, accounting software performs a range of accounting and bookkeeping tasks, storing the financial data of your business. It will ensure that accounting calculations are easier to carry out, understand, interpret and analyse. It’s there so that you can record and report on your company’s financial transactions and situation instantaneously. Choosing the most suitable software for your business will make tasks much easier and faster. However, the functionality of accounting software does differ from product to product.

Benefits of Accounting Software

• Automate tasks and improve efficiency
• Easy access to financial data
• Simplify taxes
• Integrate with other business apps
• Better financial decisions through timely reporting
• Reduced costs and savings

Paperwork and Spreadsheets are a Thing of the Past

Automation of accounting and bookkeeping tasks will allow you to be more efficient and grow your business. If you choose a cloud accounting system, you will be able to do your accounting from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection. Everything is in one place so say goodbye to sorting through paperwork and spreadsheets. Automation also leads to fewer errors related to income and expenses making your business bottom line clear.

Key Features of Accounting Software

• Payment processing – who you owe and who owes you
• Online payments – clients have swift and secure payment gateways and options
• Expense tracking – keep tabs on your cash flow
• Bank reconciliation – connect to your bank account
• Tax compliance – calculations are faster and accurate
• Payroll accounting – holiday allowances, sick pay, bonuses etc.
• Manage inventory – automating the ordering process
• Report generation – real time information on company status

How Can Relativity Help You with Your Accounting Software?

So if you have decided that you need to save time, increase efficiency, generate reports more easily and save money, it’s time for your business to switch to the invaluable resource that is accounting software. You will need to think about the key factors you require, the scalability needed, how much support you need and of course your budget. Relativity, the business technology specialists based in Uckfield are here to help. If you would like to talk to us please call on 01825 280123 or email info@relativity.co.uk for more information.

Next time Relativity will be discussing Zoho Books in more detail, the popular cloud based accounting solution, which will help you capture the entire financial picture of your business.

If you are looking for increased productivity from your employees, you will need Human Resources automation. The management of HR is an essential and indispensable part of every company. It is a department that has often been perceived as involving manual processes. However, that isn’t the case any more as automation has moved into the HR department. The advances have been rapid and designed to streamline and speed up ways of working. Automation is designed to make the lives of those involved in your HR department easier, saving time and limiting the risk of mistakes. In this article from Relativity, the business technology experts with a base in East Sussex, we look at HR management and processes in more detail including what they involve. We also define Human Resources automation and the benefits it will have for your company including increased productivity and better employee morale.

What Does HR Management and Processes Involve?

It involves compliance, recruiting, on-boarding (all the required steps for an employee to be deployed and productive) and offboarding (separating an employee from your company), employee training and development. It also includes payroll and timekeeping, holiday and absences from work through sickness and the overall wellbeing of employees within a company.

What is HR Automation?

It boosts the efficiency of the department. This is achieved by removing the repetitive and tedious manual tasks so that HR staff can concentrate on decision- making duties, developing strategies and people-centred tasks. By using data, the long-term best uses of human talent can be identified.

Benefits of Human Resources Automation

• Improved productivity – fewer manual tasks leading to quicker processing
• Lower storage and printing costs with less paper-based processing
• Reduced employee turnover due to more job satisfaction and engagement
• More efficient hiring of staff
• Better business decisions through insightful reports
• Fewer data entry errors and lost/misplaced documents
• HR data is stored safely, is easily accessed and backed up
• Reduced costs in the long run

Automation Increases Productivity

Increased productivity is a key gain from automating your HR department. Automation minimises costly errors and your HR team will have the flexibility to focus on more important parts of their job. Wages, attendance, holidays and other information is readily available. Employees can easily submit expense claims, request leave and of course give anonymous feedback on the department. Paying employees quickly and easily is also good for staff morale.

No More Missing Papers or Guesswork Regarding Compliance

Papers can easily go missing and some important things can be overlooked when doing things manually. Human Resources automation means sensitive and important documents can quickly be located and any requests can be approved by a few clicks. Compliance can be an absolute minefield but automation eradicates the guesswork. Taking on any employee means sensitive information is required and it is essential that this is stored securely.

How Can Relativity Help You Automate Your Human Resources Department?

If you haven’t made the step to automate your HR department yet, you will certainly be falling behind your competitors. Decisions made in this department impact on the whole of your company. You could say that your HR employees are the lifeblood of any successful business. Your HR department through implementing automation processes will find recruiting, training and retaining employees much easier.

However, ensure that you do your research on the best automation tools for your company with all the features you need. If you would like to talk to the business technology specialists at Relativity, please call on 01825 280123 or email info@relativity.co.uk for more information.

Next time Relativity will be discussing Zoho People in more detail, the popular cloud based Human Resources (HR) management solution, which will take care of managing your workforce and employee related activities and concerns.

Today I had that day we all dread, my Laptop failed on me. A few years ago this would have filled me with panic.  When was the last time I backed up, did it work and where is it!!! Where are my application CD’s and on top of that where are the Licence Keys!!!.  Hours later with beads of sweat running down my forehead I may have had my system back up and running and if I was lucky I may have lost only a days worth of work.

File Storage and Sharing

• Synchronised folder(s) with the web.
• Synchronisation across multiple computers, update one machine all machines updated.
• Accessible from anywhere with a web connection (inc Smartphones and Tablets)
• Folders can be shared with co-workers.
• Dropbox and Box.net have team editions where sharing can be managed centrallly.
• Automatic file versions to allow you to go back to previous versions.
• Undelete allowing you to undelete accidentally deleted files.

Things to Consider:  

• Cost, don’t be sucked in to ‘offers’ check what the price is outside the offer period.
• If this is a strategic move and you are not too concerned by cashflow look to buy a year+, this normally equates to a good saving.
• Are you just going to use it internally or use it with external colleagues, if the latter, then consider what they may already be using and what process they may have to go through to use a different system.
• Are there security issues you need to deal with.

CRM/ERP

• Full Sales Force Automation (SFA).
• Workflows, eg Send confirmation and details to accounts of new sales.
• Accessible from anywhere with a web connection.
• Accessible from Smartphones and Tablets apps including offline access.
• Add/Remove users as and when.
• Phone system integration.

Things to Consider:

• Cost.
• Integration, can it integrate or does it already integrate with existing systems you use?
• How customisable is it, whilst the initial configuration of the application may not meet your requirements most systems come with great customisation allowing you to closely, if not completely, mimic your work process.
• Does it fit with your Company’s strategic plan, if not can you move the data successfully later.

Accounting

• Cost.
• Integration, can it integrate or does it already integrate with existing systems you use?
• Security

Process

Development / Custom Applications

• Cost both the monthly and any support you may require to develop the application itself.
• Can it integrate with external systems, how easy is the integration?
• Security
• Resilience of the platform on which your app is running. Netsuite, Zoho and Salesforce are basically using the underlying infrastructure from their other services to run the development apps. Rollbase and Longjump are using an infrastructure developed specifically for the system they sell, whilst any Cloud supplier’s main weak point is keeping things up and running you would say Netsuite, Zoho and Salesforce have more to lose if things go wrong.

Projects

Communication

Things to Consider:

• Cost.
• Integration, does it need to integrate into an application you are using, this is more likely to be an issue at the application end but worth considering.
• Is it purely for internal calls or will you need to call ‘normal’ phone numbers?
• Do you need an incoming phone number, geographically where should it appear to be?
• Do you need full PBX functionality i.e. Extensions?
• How good is your Broadband Connection?

Document Editing

• Who your audience is, what format will they require?
• Ongoing support for things such as patches, on line editors are centrally managed by the supplier. Using Office to access your documents in Office 365 will mean you having to keep local apps up to date.
• Would a hybrid system work, here we use Google to work on the content of documents with all the benefits of collaboration etc. but when we need to send the final document/sheet out to someone who will use MS to work on it further then we download and format it locally.

 Online Backup

Things to Consider:

• Cost, you can end up with vastly different costs depending on your requirements now and in the future.
• Future requirements, can the service you opt for now grow to what it needs to be as the transfer to another supplier in the future could be difficult.
• Broadband Bandwidth/Restrictions, whilst most online backup systems constantly monitor your system for changes the systems are very clever and the actual data that is transferred during the day is relatively small unless you are creating lots of data (i.e lots of new images).  However all the machines will have to do their first backup, this will lead to lots of traffic initially which could cause problems with internet access during the first few days.

• Flexibility in Scalability: As you pay per user the system grows as you do, users can be added and removed at the click of a button.
• Cash flow: As users can be added and removed at will and therefore paid for at will, cashflow is not hampered by swings in staff or large expansions.
• No large upfront capital outlay or ‘end of life refresh’ outlay for hardware and software.
• Flexibility of Work: Whilst work life balance has to be considered the ability for staff to work from home or whilst travelling can be very advantageous to both the business and the staff.
• Reduced Down Time: No system is resilient to downtime and outages but Cloud systems have experts monitoring for issues 24/7 with quick fix times.
• Collaboration: Cloud systems are built around collaboration allowing users to streamline their team working process. As an example, it’s not unusual for team members to send reports around each adding, reviewing and amending as they go, at the end of the project there are multiple copies on multiple machines leading to confusion. With a Cloud solution you could create a team workspace where everyone works on the same document, perhaps at the same time!.
• Reduced exposure to lost time/money through hardware loss/theft.
• Patching is handled by the Cloud supplier, your systems are therefore always up to date with little or no downtime and at no additional cost.
• No Cost Upgrades: As you are renting the Software as a Service all upgrades are supplied within your rental fee, no capital outlay to update in the future and you always have the most recent version.