Without careful account reconciliation, it’s almost impossible to get accurate financial information about your company. Since it’s so important, it’s a good idea to know what your stumbling blocks might be. Here’s a look at five problems that account reconciliation and bookkeeping in general often have to deal with.
1: Manual Processes?
One of the big challenges for small or new firms is that they’re sometimes kind of making things up as they go along. Certainly, they follow the rules of account reconciliation and bookkeeping; that’s not the issue.
The problem is getting the right tools. Many firms feel they have no other option but to manually enter all of their daily transactions in a basic spreadsheet. They then try to run complex analyses within that same spreadsheet program.
To say that this is time-consuming would be putting it lightly. That’s why it’s so important to look into getting specialized financial software. When you’re running a business with more than a few dozen daily transactions, plus the monthly or annual reporting requirements, there’s just too much information involved to be able to do it effectively any other way.
2: Human Error?
Compounding the issue of manual processes is the fact that human beings make mistakes. No software is perfect either, of course, but the programming and design process that goes into it makes it a lot more reliable than a sleep-deprived clerk.
When it comes to your business finances, it’s important to minimize the exposure to human error as much as possible. Once again, accounting software comes to the rescue.
3: Control Issues?
Who’s in charge of your company’s money? It’s not uncommon for companies to deal with severe issues relating to accountants who have been given too much power and not enough accountability.
Make sure that no matter how small your organization is, financial control does not rest in only one person. Everybody dealing with your company’s money should be accountable to multiple others. The bigger that network gets, the harder it is to maintain any kind of conspiracy.
4: Lack of Transparency?
Transparency in account reconciliation and bookkeeping is closely related to the issue of who has control over the books, To some extent, it can be solved in the same way, by involving more people.
It’s also a good idea to use accounting software that displays all the relevant information in a clear format, so that there’s no ambiguity about the status of your accounts.
5: Short-Staffed?
These days the best solution to most of the common issues that crop up with account reconciliation and bookkeeping is to get the right software for your company. That isn’t going to solve all of your problems, though.
Even the best software with the highest degree of automation will still require human input. That occurs at least at the moment of setup, and when it’s time to review the accuracy of the information.
And that’s why the service that SyncLedgers provides is so valuable. If you just made an investment into a powerful software suite, you might find yourself wondering where the money’s going to come from to hire the people that will use it!
But by outsourcing your bookkeeping with SyncLedgers, you get all the benefits of having a dedicated financial team, at a mere fraction of the cost of doing it in-house.
Call us up today and tell us a bit about your company’s financial and bookkeeping needs. We’ll build a solution that fits!
