Most organizations need to monitor attendance and time spent on specific tasks. Time and attendance modules can be very useful additions to accounting systems. Look for these capabilities.
Time tracking: Whether you pay staff by the hour or require employees to check in at a certain time, tracking attendance and hours is essential for accurate payroll. To ensure accurate timekeeping, this is usually done with a time clock. These watches can be compatible with electronic magnetic cards, barcodes, PINs or even fingerprints, and some systems allow users to enter from a web browser or an application.
Job Tracking - Businesses in service-based industries often need to track how long jobs take to make sure they're charging the correct amount. This type of time tracking can help you make future price adjustments and identify trends in the costs of different jobs.
Job status: If your software shows you which jobs are being worked on and which ones are idle, you can keep track of what you need to do and when.
Estimates - For some service companies, providing an estimate is essential to getting the job and perhaps getting paid. A system that can store estimates and convert them to orders and invoices with just a few clicks promotes efficiency.
What are the advanced features of the accounting software?
Online accounting software can handle processes far beyond the scope of financial management, providing a single platform to control almost every aspect of your business. Look for the following advanced features if you think they will help you manage your organization.
Transport
For online retailers and businesses that frequently ship products via courier or customers, an accounting platform that can handle shipping processes will save you the investment of a separate shipping software program. Here are some of the features to look for:
Shipping Label Printing - This can save you a lot of time and streamline the shipping process when producing labels alongside orders or invoices.
Shipping cost estimate - Some systems can be configured to understand weight and distance differences to provide accurate shipping cost estimates. This ensures that you include those costs in your billing and pricing.
Shipment tracking - A link to a courier's tracking system ensures that you can control what has been shipped and estimate delivery times more accurately, providing better service to your customers.
Direct Shipments: If you need to ship a product to a customer directly from a supplier or manufacturer, it can wreak havoc on your billing unless your accounting platform can handle direct shipments.
Inventory management
An accounting system with inventory and stock management controls can really streamline your business, helping you identify what you have in stock, what you need to reorder, and where you are spending your purchasing budget.
Inventory Tracking - Tracking the life cycle of an item, from purchase to warehousing and sales to shipping, is a great asset to help you keep track of inventory levels.
Set Inventory Levels - You can ensure that you do not overorder or underorder certain products by using automatic ordering to guarantee stock within a specific range. This saves you the hassle of not having items in stock when you need them or a glut of original site products that just won't move.
Specific Stock Locations - For large distribution centers, having stock locations included in orders avoids the need for an additional warehouse management system, helping to optimize business functions.
Item Images - Including item images is also advantageous for distributors as it allows everyone involved in the process to visually identify the products and ensure that the correct items are shipped.