Running a trade business can be hectic, but accounting technology makes it easier.
It removes the need for manual entry, cutting out the tedious tasks that take away from the time you need to manage your business.
Accounting technology also gives you the ability to see exactly where you stand in all areas of your business including:
- The strength of your cash flow
- Total job costing
- Profitability through a profitability analysis
- The current state of each of your projects
- And more
With the right third-party applications, you can build a tech stack that works together to manage your finances and provide you with all of the accurate details you need to grow your trade business.
Accounting Technology Stacks Organize Automation
The idea behind a tech stack is to automate as much of your accounting system as possible while ensuring each tool integrates with the others. This streamlines information and limits the need for manual work.
Currently, there are tools to eliminate nearly every corner of your accounting system, including:
- Job costings
- Bill collecting
- Internal communication
- Centralizing receipts and invoices
- Payment processing
- Bookkeeping
- Project management
- Profitability analysis
- Creating bids and change orders
- Financial forecasting
- Business planning
- Payroll management
As previously mentioned, what’s most important is that all of these tools work together. If not, you’ll have to transfer information from tool to tool, making it more of a hassle and time-consuming process than expected.
The Benefits of a Well-Built Accounting Technology Stack
When utilizing a tech stack that’s working properly together, you’ll see a number of key benefits:
- Work from anywhere. There’s no limit to accessing information in the cloud through this type of technology setup.
- Save time. Put more time toward tasks you need to personally handle since there’s no manual data entry needed.
- Ensure accurate data input since the human factor is eliminated (everyone makes mistakes sometimes!)
- Easy reporting and viewing of data. At any time, you can see who owes you money, what you owe suppliers and other critical information needed for balancing cash flow, forecasting, and planning within your company.
Argento CPA’s Ideal Accounting Technology Stack
Here’s what we believe makes the perfect tech stack for trade businesses:
Knowify
Start here. Everything else you do integrates into Knowify (or QuickBooks which also integrates with Knowify).
It’s built for the trade industry, which means every component is valuable. More so, it’s easy to use with a streamlined dashboard.
The job costing feature is one of its most useful tools. It lets you see how you are doing financially on every project at any time. It also includes project management, invoicing software, and a CRM built specifically for trade businesses.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks and Knowify bi-directionally sync, which is incredibly important in a tech stack for trade businesses. It allows for the auto-tracking of your expenses and your income.
QuickBooks syncs all of your accounts automatically, organizes your transactions, and allows you to see valuable reports in real-time. It’s a fundamental tool in an automated accounting system.
Wagepoint
Wagepoint is important for Canadian businesses. It knows Canadian payroll rules for each province and does an excellent job of automating tax and source deductions.
With Wagepoint, you can:
- Track your employees’ sick pay and vacation days
- File ROEs electronically
- Track your employees’ benefits
- Set up direct deposit
- Automatically pay for taxes on the day they are done
- And more.
Dext
Instead of manually entering them, Dext allows you to capture your receipts quickly and easily. It pulls all of their necessary data and logs it into your system. Then, it saves your data and sorts it based on what you need and don’t need. Dext also integrates with Knowify.
Stripe
If you don’t already have an account, Stripe is one of the best tools available for accepting and sending payments. It works well with Knowify and is competitive in terms of features and pricing.
Plooto
One of the best accounting components to your tech stack is this. Plooto automates the entire accounts receivable and payable for your business. It pulls the information directly from QuickBooks.
Plooto helps you make payments, match those payments to invoices, and then mark them as paid. You can also see your accounts payable owning each day as it provides live updates. Plooto also creates an audit trail to streamline record keeping.
Everything Connects with Accounting Technology
Each of these tools is necessary when relying on a solid tech stack to run your accounting system.
One of the greatest benefits of this particular tech stack is that they each work together without redundancy. This ensures you have everything you need, all in one place.
Ready to Build the Ideal Accounting Technology Stack for Your Trade Business?
If you are ready to grow your trade business, you need a comprehensive tech stack to manage your accounting. With this insight, you can make better decisions and automate many of the tasks you have to do daily. The right tech stack is critical to streamlining processes, saving time, and improving efficiency.Let Argento help you put together a tech stack that drives growth. Contact us today to learn more!