How To Improve Your Accounting Department

It goes without saying that any business needs a well-run accounting department in order to maintain optimal functionality. But exactly what can a business owner do to ensure that an accounting department is operating at top efficiency?

Let’s look at some potentially useful process additions, improvements, and system upgrades that you might wish to consider for your accounting department.

• Ignoring bank reconciliation can cause serious problems for your business. This oversight may blind you to the presence of fraudulent account activity or cause checks to bounce, to name just a few potential issues.

• Document management software solutions can help your accounting department perform this function without delay, to avoid the risk of penalties.

• Laws relating to tax filing are subject to change on a regular basis. It’s your duty to ensure that you don’t get tripped up by these periodic revisions.

• In addition to studying applicable laws, you should be aware of current “best practices” in the world of accounting—which also change with the times.

• Your employees probably know the basics of their job duties—but are they properly exploiting all the tools and processes available to them?

• In many cases, accountants aren't fully aware of all the useful, time-saving features in the software they use on the job. Helping them become well-acquainted with these tools can boost productivity.

• An automated system allows users to process invoices quickly and efficiently to avoid potentially costly delays. An automated solution can also detect invoice errors to improve processing accuracy.

• In addition, automated software allows you to track early payment discount opportunities.

• The “cloud” is essentially an internet-based storage center maintained by servers and independent of any particular piece of hardware. Because it can be accessed by nearly any web-enabled device, data in the cloud can be easily retrieved, uploaded, or edited when needed.

• With proper security precautions in place, data stored in the cloud is very safe.

• Are there inefficiencies in your accountancy system? One way to discover them is to carry out a full system walk-through. Go through every step of your business critical accounting procedures and evaluate how automation could benefit the process —this will give you a solid understanding of existing procedures and, possibly, ways to improve them.

• Everyone talks about productivity, but what do we mean by that term? Does your accountancy department know what must be done to meet minimal standards of productivity? Don’t leave them in the dark—set down specific goals to be reached.

Founded in 2001, Square 9 is a leading provider of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, including SmartSearch,

GlobalSearch, GlobalForms, ImageXChange, and additional process automation solutions.

Visit www.square-9.com for more information.