An integrated accounting system is software that receives a constant flow of data and combines major financial accounting functions into one application. It interconnects the reporting activities and eliminates the need for separate books for recording orders, costs, expenses, and other accounting transactions. It helps your business to interconnect reporting activities to different functional areas such as POS terminal, inventory management, and office expenses.   

It is regarded as one of the modern technologies in accounting processes that have made handling files and numbers much easier. It will allow your business to upscale and modernize by providing greater control over financial activities. An integrated accounting system helps to find out the marginal cost, variances, and other abnormal costs and supports the merchant to control the liabilities and expenses of the business. It provides detailed information regarding each cost, expenses, accounts payable, accounts receivable and prepares profit and loss account and balance sheet for your business. This capability to process all information and provide a uniform flow of data provides a competitive advantage and greater control over the financial process for your business and becomes more lucrative in performance. 

How Does an Integrated Accounting System Work for Your Business? 

Accounting Integration can reconcile all the financial records in a real-time and accurate way. It is a cloud-based software that eliminates human error and the need to reconcile all the financial information by avoiding manual data entry from one system to another. This means information once entered and shared with other modules is updated in a database in real-time and can be accessed anytime. Moreover, it helps you to make data-driven decisions with accurate information on time.  

An Integrated accounting solution can access data from POS terminals or inventory management modules and your business can enjoy “all-in-one” functionality from the software. Some of the key functions performed by integrated accounting software are: 

• Record and Update everyday Billing and Bookkeeping 
• Maintain and record accounts payable and accounts receivable 
• Maintain general ledger 
• Process payments electronically 
• Manage employee’s payroll 
• Bank Reconciliation (Comparing cash balance of the company books with bank statement) 
• Maintain Purchasing orders 

The secondary functions of integrated accounting are debt collections, manage the company’s payroll, timesheet management connected with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), or inventory management. 

What are the Benefits of an Integrated Accounting System for Your Business? 

An integrated accounting system gives greater efficiency and control for your business; thus, it is considered worth purchasing and learning how to use it. However most accounting software is user-friendly, you might need to give your staff training and time to learn how to use it.  

Let’s look at the core benefits that integrated accounting provides to business and helps it grow and modernize: 

• It minimizes the need for manually entering numbers into the system and will save a lot of productive time and reduce human error. You do not need to ask your accounting team to re-enter and re-calculate numbers to balance new figures against them. 
• The accounting integration software shows you a clear picture of your business. It helps you to verify job costing and other expenses and makes your job much easier as compared to doing them traditionally.  
• You will be able to view far insight on your company’s financial situation. With accurate data and real-time information, you can view your business forecast and back up your data-based decisions.  
• Using modern accounting software is an effective way to keep maintain good relations with suppliers, be competitive in the market, and boost your business revenue.  
• Accounting Integration ensures higher visibility of transactions and closely monitors payments. It speeds up the process to post receivables and improves cash flow. Moreover, it provides you a snapshot of supply history, sales estimates, payment processing, and other information and builds smart business strategies.  

Integrated Accounting Software Solution Available for Your Business 

It is very important to consider the integration function before selecting any accounting software. Integration function allows you to add and pull data from any bills and invoices, payroll, tax system and minimizing the chances of an accounting error and data redundancy. 

In this process, we have analyzed the integrated accounting software feature to help you identify their integration capability.  

1. Xero 

Xero is cloud-based accounting software that allows users to manage accounting processes such as invoicing, payment processing, purchase order, and inventory management. Xero has a special expense management functionality, which allows you to maintain a record of receipts, track claims, reconcile cash statements with a bank statement and monitor expenditure in real-time. This software provides a payment management function and allows users to make bulk payments for payroll and product invoices.  Moreover, your employees can add their timesheet and send payroll invoices within the system,  

The key functions of Xero integrated accounting software are: 

• Provides POS terminal for payment solution 
• Inventory payment processing 
• Payroll solutions for employees.  

2. MYOB 

MYOB is one of the accounting software that has been providing bookkeeping and cloud-based accounting solution since 1991. It is one of the dominant players in accounting software and provides a cloud-based booking solution. This software is designed for businesses that are new in the market and where the merchant does not have any previous accounting information. It has a user-friendly interface and uses simple phrases like ”money-in” and “money-out”. It has an efficient customer support system and has uploaded online training videos to maximize the use of the software.  

3. QuickBooks 

QuickBooks is accounting software that offers end-to-end accounting solutions for any type of business. Accounting tasks like payroll, payable, inventory tracking, etc are easily managed via this software. You can add any specific accounting features as per your business requirement via QuickBooks and help your business grow. Thus, you can easily add all your expenses, including multiple transactions from different bank accounts.  

QuickBooks provides industry-specific report templates; thus, you can prepare the financial report in your version and make improvements wherever required.  

4. Billingbooth 

Billingbooth is a cloud-based accounting solution that offers integrated solutions with other accounting software such as QuickBooks, Xero, sage, and many more. Its key features are invoicing and payment, order management billing, and prepare financial reporting for small and mediums sized businesses. It generates periodic invoices and sends them out automatically. With its reporting tools, you can analyze financial information in current and past days and review monthly reviews. It helps you prepare a customized invoice with your business logo and theme color.   

5. ConnectWise 

Connectwise is a business management platform that provides more function than an accounting solution. Along with tracking, billing, recording, and invoicing, it provides services like sending marketing campaigns, cloud application management, customer relationship management, and service level management. It is designed to connect every technology software you use for your business and provide better business, discover full-visibility billing, and handle handoffs without hiccups. 

Conclusion 

An integrated accounting system makes the accounting process easier for your business. Rather than manually entering information, the accounting system automatically receives a constant flow of data and provides up-to-date financials. By syncing up your accounting software with the CloudBanking payment platform, you can securely connect and access your information in the cloud. You can automate your payment processing and reconciliation and save your values time and resources.