These days, most people live on their mobile devices. Business owners use them to stay connected while traveling between appointments/job sites, or to check-in while on their personal time. Since we live in such a fast-paced society, it’s hard to find time to sit down at a desk or in front of your computer to take care of the bookkeeping tasks needed to keep your business functioning- whether this means looking up information or getting your invoices out on time.
Today’s mobile financial management apps allow business owners to access/manage small business finances no matter where they are or what time it is. This will help you save time so that you can focus on growing your business.
Invoicing
When it comes to running a business, one of the most important tasks is to be able to invoice. A mobile invoicing app will be able to insert your business logo, name, and pertinent contact info into a template. At that point, you can add your customer’s information, descriptions of your products/services, and prices.
Then, when you’re ready to create a new invoice, it will generate a unique invoice number, and allow you to use a drop-down menu to choose your customer and then add the products/services you’ve already set up.
You want to make sure that it also allows you to add sales tax and make price adjustments by adding a discount code or an additional fee. Ideally, you should also be able to choose the appropriate issue date, payment terms, due dates, and other notes/attachments required from anywhere, as long as you can access the app. Plus, you want to make sure that the desktop version and the app work well together so that you can work on invoicing from anywhere.
Document/Data Capture
As a business owner, you are likely inundated with receipts no matter where you are- at your desk or not. However, no matter what version they are (paper/electronic), you must capture them and account for that money.
Find an app that will allow you to capture a photo of paper receipts and save/organize them in the app. Make sure that you can also import receipts from your email or photo gallery as well. Once the receipts are imported, the app should match receipts to bank/credit card charges, access them for mobile invoices, or be able to find out what you were charged by a vendor.
To make things easier, you may also want to find an app that will extract the data from these documents and load it into a cloud-based financial management system. By automating the reconciliation process, you reduce the time spent on categorizing the paperwork (paper and digital) that you’ve received.
Real-Time/Background Data Handling
Find an app that will allow you to look up transactions in several ways:
- Time
- Status
- Vendor
- Category
If you need to look up a specific transaction from the previous month, the app should allow you to select a date range. It should also allow you to filter by whether or not the transaction has been reviewed/validated, find a transaction for a specific vendor, or look up transactions by category. If the app is connected to your bank/credit card accounts, it should do this automatically, giving you real-time info and helping you avoid being tied to your desk.
Organize Business Finances Safely/Efficiently from Anywhere
A great business mobile app will allow you to quickly perform a lot of tasks related to your business. The right one will match specific documents to a specific customer, assigning them to an account/category based on the formula you set up. This will help you avoid the complications that arise with 75% of reconciliations. A small business owner understands what they’ve done and when the app knows what you know, it can check things much faster in the background.
The flexibility of being able to access records on the go is critical for small business owners and a great data capture means that what you import matches your physical documents.
Conclusion
As a small business owner, you know that time is critical. You must find ways to be more efficient and leverage the time that you have. If you need help finding the best app for your business, contact Rexford Commercial Capital. We can help you manage your small business finances whether you’re in the office or traveling.
