Online Accounting: A boon of the modern day technology

Jan. 30, 2009 - PRLog -- There were times when books of accounts were maintained manually. Each transaction had to be scribbled manually in the books.
Different books were kept for different customers & vendors. Each ledger account had a separate book. Then there used to be book for General Ledger & Trial Balance. Any transaction having multiple effects had to be manually posted in all those ledger books which were impacted by the transaction.
This caused the books of accounts to be very bulky in size and it was tough being an accountant. However, , it with the advent of software, became possible to have the books of accounts maintained and reported in a soft format. In fact, the software are so written that entering a transaction has become a child's play. While designing the software, care is taken to in-build all the debits and credits into the systems. Thus when any transaction is posted, the software works behind the scene to update the necessary ledgers without the bookkeeper/accountant having to worry about opening each ledger and entering the transaction.

Software like Quickbooks, Peachtree, MyOB, CSA etc. are pioneer in building accounting packages that are highly user friendly and very easy to operate.
In fact, many corporate houses have gone a step further and adopted what is called the ERP solution that aids in configuring all the departments to one single package.
Thus, when there is a shipment of goods from the go-down, one entry from the go-down supervisor would automatically impact the books of accounts. Inventory, expenses, reimbursement, purchases, sales all are interlinked to the books of account. Thus is such type of environments, there is no need for a separate person to do data entry unlike the old days.
However, building ERP solutions is a costly affair and is not feasible for small & medium sized businesses. These businesses are serviced by the stand alone software packages like QB, Peachtree etc.
But there is one problem with the stand alone software. What if a business owner is on travel and wants to know the fund position? It is not possible for a person to access a stand alone software from anywhere else than the machine where it is installed. Keeping this in mind and also the fact that accounting shall aid a business owner in taking business decision at any point of time, online packages were announced.
This gave birth to Online Accountant! In the online versions, one just needs an internet connection and a login credential to one's account. With these two basic items n hand, anyone can access the books of accounts from anywhere in the world. In fact, online software has helped accountants to go online big time. The accountant need not be in office to post an entry or generate a report. This has also helped in ushering in world of outsourced accounting. Being an online accountant, it was no more necessary for a business to hire an in-house bookkeeper or accountant. The business owner just needed a scanner and an internet connection to scan the documents and send them to the online accountant (who could be from anywhere in the world) and the online accountant would simply log in to the online books of accounts and update the same.
This has helped the business in saving costs substantially!

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APT Services is the fastest growing outsourcing firm in India servicing clients in US. Owned and managed by Indian CPAs, APT Services has built up expertise in the niche area of accounting, payroll and tax preparation services. Numerous small businesses and CPA firms in US have gained immensely by utilizing the quality services of APT.