Bookkeeping automation: 8 benefits for startups

Bookkeeping can be a huge burden for startup founders, with 40% of businesses spending over 80 hours every year on bookkeeping and tax preparation. Not only does this take up valuable time, but it can also increase business costs. 

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One thing that can help startup owners streamline the company bookkeeping process is a bookkeeping automation system. 

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Keep reading for everything you need to know about the top benefits of automated bookkeeping and why you should consider it for your startup. It’s time to leave manual accounting and bookkeeping in the past!

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Reasons to consider automating bookkeeping services

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1. Saves time

The primary benefit of using an automated bookkeeping system as a business owner is that it will save you time. Studies show that 25% of business owners work more than 60 hours each week. In business, time is money. 

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If you are spending time on inconsequential projects that someone else could do, you are wasting your productivity and losing money in the process. 

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Although bookkeeping is essential to the success of your business, automating it can save you a lot of time and work! If you use the automation tools properly, you can get the same results from your bookkeeping in a fraction of the time while reducing operating costs.

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2. Painless tax filing

Because tax preparation and planning takes so much longer for business owners, it can be one of the most stressful times for your company. This is especially true if you fall behind on your business bookkeeping and have to play catch-up. 

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However, it is much simpler to pay your taxes when you automate your bookkeeping. 

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Not only can your automated bookkeeping help you file taxes, but it will ensure that you have all of your information up-to-date! This way, you will never have to worry about missing data when filing your taxes. 

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3. Improves productivity

Next, using an automated bookkeeping system will help you improve your productivity in the workplace. As was mentioned before, business owners have a lot on their plates. They need to decide which tasks are the most important to the success of their business. 

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When you save time on accounting tasks with an automated system, you have more time to focus on other, more important areas of the business. 

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For example, you can focus on sales or other areas of business growth. When you delegate your accounting responsibilities to an automated system, you and everyone else that works on bookkeeping for your business will increase your productivity elsewhere. 

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4. Increased accuracy

As a busy business owner, it can be easy to make mistakes when rushing to balance the books. While this may not seem like a big deal, mistakes with financial data entry or formulas in your bookkeeping can lead to serious issues, especially when it comes time to do your taxes or being audit ready. 

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However, automated bookkeeping can increase your bookkeeping accuracy and will result in more reliable data. 

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Unlike humans, machines are much less likely to make computing errors. While it is still essential that you go through the data and verify that it was done correctly by your automated system, this will take much less time and will result in fewer bookkeeping and accounting errors. 

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5. Cloud access to data

Another great benefit of automating bookkeeping is that it provides cloud access to your financial data — often in real-time, depending on the platform. A more archaic practice that some businesses still use is storing accounting and business information in filing cabinets, floppy disks, or USB drives. 

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To complicate things further, businesses often store this information off-site, making it much more difficult to access important information. 

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Cloud accounting and cloud access to business data is much more convenient and will help you save storage space and avoid the messiness of having paper files!

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6. Faster data retrieval

Because automated accounting systems allow you to store information on the cloud, it is much easier to retrieve your data when you need information. 

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Rather than sifting through hundreds of files for financial information that you may need in a timely manner (such as at an investor's request), you can access your data from nearly anywhere. 

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7. Safe file storage

Finally, accounting automation makes it much easier to store sensitive financial information safely. Many bookkeeping automation programs have systems in place to encrypt your data and protect against breaches. 

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Zeni, for example, securely encrypts all data on disk using military-grade 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard and securely keeps each customer’s info in separate data partitions.

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Plus, many local regulations determine how long you need to store paper records. This is often for about 7-10 years. With cloud storage, you can utilize e-receipt storage and keep digital copies of your documents. 

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This also makes it easier to store your data, as you can put them into different folders on your computer for easy access. 

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Need help with bookkeeping automation?

As a business owner, staying on top of your bookkeeping is essential to your success. Finding a bookkeeping automation system can help you keep your books up-to-date and accurate in real-time while saving time and money. 

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If you are looking for a bookkeeping system, Zeni can help! We offer intelligent bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO services, and our expert finance professionals, combined with AI technology, can help you improve your business finances. 

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Contact us today to learn more about our bookkeeping software pricing and to schedule a demo of our business bookkeeping system.