FreshBooks , has traditionally offered a very SIMPLISTIC cash flow process to small businesses. It’s evolving and is now introducing a full-blown “industry-standard, double-entry accounting” via the FreshBook’s platform, with a TWIST.
Double-entry Accounting (Just in case you are wondering what it is!)
Double-entry accounting is a standard industry practice that balances cash transactions across two or more accounts: a reduction in one account (Expense) will balance an increase in another. Thus, the accounts are always kept balanced. If you want a deep dive into this practice, read about it here. For those looking for assistance in accounting then consider contacting these accounting firms in chicago.
Approachable Accounting: The Customer-Centric Approach
FreshBooks has introduced a standard industrial double-entry accounting for such business owners who are great at running the business operations but not necessarily great at accounting. Although they have introduced a standard industry practice, they have turned it more towards the business owner & adhered to their trademark simplistic & no-frills approach. Therefore, they have branded their platform as “Approachable Accounting” using a cloud accounting software system.
FreshBooks, unlike other cloud-based accounting software solutions, revolves around the business owner & makes the process “easy-to-understand” & “easy-to-practice” for him/her. So, FreshBooks Platform has stripped off the conventionally used heavy, complex accounting algorithms and focused on integrating a user-friendly simplistic outlook. FreshBooks approachable accounting is an easy, simple, seamless & non-intimidating process that helps you in recording not only your day-to-day transactions, invoices & costs but also in keeping an account of liabilities and assets. FreshBooks offers a warm & inviting interface that allows you to integrate all your finance related data seamlessly into the system without having to bother about the complex accounting practices. At the back-end, FreshBooks algorithms are tirelessly at work, doing all the essential, complex calculations for you, so that you are on top of all your financials including tax time, invoices, cash transactions & beyond.
The “Approachable Accounting” Features
- The Core Accounting Features –The Invoice-based Transactions
The following 3 double-entry accounting features make up the backbone of FreshBook’s accounting engine & maintain all the records for you while you remain free to on running your business:
- The Chart of Accounts: This is the list of accounts your business has acquired over time. The Chart of Accounts holds key to all the information regarding the assets- liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses pertaining to each of these accounts. This helps you with the day-to-day maintaining of your business accounts so that you can pull out the data whenever you need to. This is a search-friendly list and information about any account can be filtered out according to date You can get the step-by-step Guide here.
- The Trial Balance: This feature handles all the transactions in your business, the in-flow & outflow of funds, debit, credit etc. to ensure that your accounts are balanced. Any discrepancy is highlighted as an error. This is a very important feature for tracking your financial settlements. A detailed Guide on how to use Trial Balance is right here.
- General Ledger (GL): As you might have already guessed, this Feature is all about providing a bird’s eye view on your entire gamut of business transactions that help you prepare your financial statement. The accounts that are maintained by the GL are assets (fixed & current), liabilities, revenue, expenses, gains & losses. With GL’s help, not only can you prepare the Accounts Report, but also export or print it for further discussions. This is also a search-friendly system & helps you to filter out the records according to a date Read about how to use it here.
- The “Other” Revenue Tracking Features – Non-Invoice Transactions
This feature helps you to keep your books on the non-invoice-based transactions that often come in drips & make it painful to account for. This revenue, of course, cannot be neglected since, in due time, these add up to become a sizeable portion of your income. This FreshBook feature makes it super-easy to account for the “Other Revenue” & help keep your books clean, particularly for tax purposes. The data entries are color-coded so that it becomes easier for you to investigate the data and track the source. Look here.
So, if you are a small business owner who runs the show by himself/herself, managing all the verticals of a business across marketing, operations & accounting, FreshBooks Platform is surely for you. You might agree that when you are managing the entire show, you tend to neglect that vertical of your business that appears to be the most unappealing. Many times, ACCOUNTING becomes THAT vertical & so the regular book-keeping goes for a toss. The best option is to delegate it to an expert who is a pro at accounting & does it for you, of course at a price. The next best option is to delegate it to “FreshBooks” & get your accounting done at the backdrop while you focus more on the Business Operations, the part that you like doing most.
