Often called “the language of business”, accounting lies at the heart of a business, serving as the backbone of core business operations across the entire company.

Accounting provides much of the information that owners, managers, and investors need to evaluate a company’s financial performance. However, managing a business requires attention to many financial details and much more time-consuming without the help of accounting software.

Therefore, accounting software for businesses, which is designed to streamline, accelerate and enhance accounting related tasks and procedures from end-to-end, are now becoming more and more popular nowadays.

Accounting software can not only help you reduce human errors in your calculations, but it can help you gain insights into your business that you couldn't see in paper form such as generating sales forecasts for the next quarter, determining which items are overstocked, and pinpointing your least profitable service.

Business accounting software can really deliver dramatic and measurable value to businesses of all types. Even the smallest business can benefit from a wide variety of small business accounting software products on the market. But finding the best accounting software program for your business can be a challenge, with an explosion of shrink-wrapped software products and online accounting software application offerings.

The Difference

There are several top-selling accounting software programs that can be bought off the shelf, or over the Web, that will meet most small business needs by providing the accounting tools and reports you need to use your financial data.

Accounting software programs are higher-priced and more full-featured and powerful that may include other financial functions you need to track in your business, such as point of sale, inventory control, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), billing, purchasing and even Enterprise Resource Management (ERP). It is available in a variety of tiered editions and for which there are add-ons, such as a cash-flow calculator. These are also customizable, with flexibility to adjust to your administrative processes and end users can easily enter and retrieve data and get assistance. However, these need to be installed and require a license. Popular products include Everest's Business Management Software, which integrates all business processes into one solution, and NetSuite which boasts that it's "everything you need in one powerful solution."

On the other hand, online accounting programs, though have similar features with computer-based programs, is said to be much easier, convenient and flexible.

The challenge with installing accounting software onto your small business computer is that you have to constantly make sure that it is up to date and that the environment upon which it resides is secure and backed up. These are just some of the reasons why business owners are now looking to web accounting software solutions as the way forward.

Doing your accounting online is also easier to understand, can be accessed from anywhere and are automatically updated as the tax rules change. Online accounting software also eliminates much of the technology cost and virtually all of the hassle associated with having an up to date accounting system.

Making use of state of the art online applications means that you will be benefited from the latest developments and potentially improve your business efficiency and productivity in financial processes as updating is automatic.

With interfaces into banking software and the ability to customize invoicing you can also benefit from having real time online access to key performance indicators and other valuable dashboard information upon which you can make informed business decisions.

One popular example of this is Shoebooks Online Accounting Software.

Shoebooks’ online accounting software is simple yet comprehensive, enabling you to take your business accounts with you anywhere in the world.

Moreover, customizable, Shoebooks online accounting solution has been specifically designed to deliver fast results, simply and intuitively.