Cloud accounting to get your business working smarter.

Cloud accounting is using an online accounting software that has the same, if not better, security than banks. You don’t ever have to worry about your data! 

Cloud accounting and bookkeeping software like Xero, pulls all of your financial information from your bank accounts and uses artificial intelligence to analyse and help categorise some of your spending for you. 

Once your financial information has been cleared to ‘zero’, you can look at your phone and say “Oh, I’ve made $10,000 profit this month and I’ve got $150,000 in my bank account. That’s awesome!”. 

By being in the cloud, your bookkeeping software can also talk to your project management software or to your payroll software or to inventory software, so you’re sharing a lot of this data electronically and automatically and that means there’s less manual input you have to do.

It makes your business a lot more efficient, which saves you time and saves you money as well. 

Cloud technology can get you paid faster too. Say goodbye to paper invoices and chasing up those who don’t pay month after month. 

Nowadays you email an invoice, and your client can click on a link, put their credit card details in and then your invoice has been paid. Also, being in the cloud means you can easily set up monthly recurring payments and direct debits yourself without the need for any input from a bank teller.

Your accounting being in the cloud means that you don’t have stacks on stacks of paper and binders that you’re surrounded by. Your quotes, invoices and bills are now all on your computer, phone, iPad or on all three! 

No longer do you need to wait for your bank statement to come in the post and balance your books quarterly to send to the tax office. 

Remember when you wouldn’t have a clue how much tax you were going to have to pay or how much money you’ve made? Having a Sydney accountant that specialises in cloud technology like us, allows you to be incredibly proactive as you can see real time data. 

One of the best things about cloud accounting is your ability to set automatic reminders to pay your bills and for your clients to pay theirs! It can even let them know if they can expect an overdue fee, so the hard work of chasing payment is done for you.

There are even apps like Dext and Hubdoc that take photos of your receipts and your bills to extract information, and put it into your cloud accounting so that you don’t have to manually enter that data yourself.

This is particularly helpful for applying for finance or if the ATO comes knocking. You have every piece of information right at your fingertips and you can share it with just the click of a button.

Cloud accounting means you can also connect and share your numbers with people like your bookkeeper, accountant, mortgage broker, estate lawyer or financial advisor easier than ever before. 

Here at Orbit, we only use Xero as we want to be the master of one amazing cloud accounting software, as opposed to knowing enough (but never being experts) at the others.

With Xero, you have the ability to see your numbers at all times, make immediate payments or purchase orders, track income, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The really good thing about Xero is that it has multiple options to connect to payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal, and E-way. There are multiple ways that people can pay you as opposed to just online banking.

The best place to start is the Xero App Store, because that shows every app that integrates with Xero and has received the seal of approval.

There’s multiple different apps that all do very similar things. What kind of way do you prefer to work? For instance, the project management apps may use the Kanban method, list methods or features like having multiple people on multiple projects. 

We help you work out exactly what problem needs to be resolved, what your budget is, and how good you are with technology to find the perfect solution that integrates seamlessly with Xero.

Here at Orbit, we are not just Sydney accountants! We are constantly thinking about your small business and what you can do better. And it could just be something simple, like implementing a ‘Zap’ to get one system to talk to another.

Cloud technology is used in multiple different apps that can really transform your small business. You can work anywhere in the world at any time, you get to see your information in real time, so you can make really important decisions in real time.

We would look at what apps and cloud based business technology are out there that will help your business be more efficient. We take a small business owner, like a Sydney chiropractor, from handwriting her appointments in a diary to electronically scheduling recurring appointments that allow her to get paid upfront upon booking.

With efficiencies like this you won’t miss out on income coming in because your clients cancel at the last minute.

Cloud technology also helps you manage your staff better by implementing apps like Happy HR where you can keep track of your employee contracts, position descriptions, and review salaries. Deputy also tracks timesheets and rosters to make payroll so much easier.

Cash flow because it’s the lifeblood of your small business, so no wonder you are looking for how to improve it. By giving you ways to see where your money is coming in and out in real time using cloud technology like Xero, we will have you sitting pretty by helping you to improve your cash flow.

Xero can get you paid faster too. One of the best things about Xero is that it has so many options to connect to payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal, and E-way. There are more ways that people can pay you, they are not just trapped into online banking.

This makes it quicker and easier for them to pay you and quicker and easier for you to get paid. Talk about improving that cash flow! 

Don’t think improving the efficiency of your business processes has to be this major overhaul of technology and systems that take months to master. It could be a few simple changes that you need someone on the outside (us!) to point out.

We love to get to know you, the way you work, the goals you have for your business, how your time is spent and how you would rather spend it. Then we help you get there by harnessing the power of technology and its efficiencies.

First we map out the process that needs to happen (not how it happens). Super simple, like ‘I need to have my appointments in my calendar, with enough prep time beforehand, a list of resources I’ll need for the appointment, and get paid after it as soon as possible’.

As an external set of eyes, we can help you analyse and redesign the process to make it as streamlined as possible and tell you the best technology to make it happen. And no, we don’t just throw you out into the wild and hope you survive! 

We are there every step of the way to hear your feedback, review and tweak the new process, and make it as usable and efficient as possible.

Of course, Xero has the perfect way to track expenses for small businesses.

Xero Expenses is a claim management tool that helps small businesses reduce the time and brain power it takes to track and manage their employee expenses. This is the ideal expense tracking technology, not just for you as the business owner or manager, but for all of your employees too.

You can record your expenses as they happen by simply taking a photo of your receipt and  uploading it anytime, anywhere. If your team member bought a gift for a client out of thier own money, they can upload their receipt to Xero expenses and you can reimburse them with the click of a button!

You can monitor your employees’ spend in real-time, giving you an accurate picture of their expenses and when reimbursements are due to help improve cash flow. 

HubDoc and DEXT is are Xero add ons that are used to manage all your business expenses. These apps can automatically extract information from the photo of these receipts and bills, and input it into Xero so that you don’t have to manually enter that data yourself – magic!

As your accountant and bookkeeper, we can see this too, meaning we can work quicker and give better advice when you need it. Cloud technology makes life so much more efficient for all of us!