Collaborative accounting: An exemplary form of accounting for small businesses

Evolution is a part of nature. Even after shaping a concept or thing to perfection, it keeps on evolving with time and technology, and accounting is no exception to it. From paperwork in the form of hard copy to accounting software, accounting has gone through a journey of drastic changes, modification and evolution. And still, with the passage of time, new and improved features, concepts and technologies are being introduced in the accounting industry and one such addition to accounting is collaborative accounting.

So let’s go through the concept of collaborative accounting through this article in detail, so that you can know what this form of accounting has to offer for your business.

What is collaborative accounting?

Collaborative accounting is simply the activity of one or more than one person involving in the accounting function. But with this definition of collaborative accounting, you might be thinking that the above-mentioned practice of accounting is not new as all the firms have one or more than one  person involved in their accounting function but the new breed lies in taking the concept of collaborative accounting by using internet and making it a backbone of collaboration.  

One of the best examples of collaborative accounting is the working of CPAs and their client on a real-time basis, even if they are not at the same location. Whenever an entry is made by the client, their CPAs are able to see the changes on a real time basis and thus they make the required changes to it.

What are the benefits of collaborative accounting?

Real-time collaboration

The real-time collaboration allows the users to minimize the need for sequential processes and thus multiple users can work on the same file, sitting at a different location. This leads the users to be updated with the latest changes which result in timely reporting and analysis.

Cost Saving

This form of accounting also helps the firm to save cost in two different ways. First, since the collaborative accounting is all cloud-based, there is no need to install IT infrastructure in your premise and even the cost of hiring IT staffs to maintain and manage the hardware and software is wiped out. The next form of cost saving comes with improved efficiency. With real time updates, no user has to wait for the information and they also skip the cumbersome process of moving the information to another user. This result in improved efficiency and with more productivity within the same time, a great amount of money is saved.

Enhanced accounting and reporting process

Small businesses have limited resources and thus increasing the efficiency of  any department within those limited resources becomes a tough challenge for them. But with the help of collaborative accounting, small business can easily enhance their accounting and reporting process which will add a great value to their overall productivity of the business.

How to build a collaborative accounting environment?

One of the ideal ways to build a collaborative accounting environment is through QuickBooksHosting. This fully-functional accounting software offers a wide variety of accounting tools which are user-friendly in nature and the software can be hosted on the cloud server also. For example, if you go for QuickBooks Enterprise Hosting, then all your data and the software will be stored on the cloud server.

After hosting the software, you need to set QuickBooks multi-user mode, through which different users will be able to work on the same file at the same time with real-time updates.

QuickBookshosting for small business is the best form of collaborative accounting. Through the fully-functional software and with the power of cloud, SMEs will be able to shape their accounting tasks in a perfect way.