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Accounting Software in Business Organizations – What Features Do You Really Need?

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Accounting Software in Business Organizations – What Features Do You Really Need?

Many businesses are now implementing accounting software in their businesses instead of relying on the traditional use of spread sheets. The benefit of using accounting software is undeniable, whether a business is just starting out or it is an expanding enterprise – saves a business precious time, money and manpower, allowing accounts to be quickly updated and reports to be conveniently churned out.

So Which Do You Pick?

A new business owner may not know what to look out for when choosing the best accounting software for his business. Good for him, there’s lots of choices available. The downside? Not knowing which to pick!

While every accounting software may seem to be the same (You just need to manage your accounts, right?), there are features that stand out in some accounting software that make them better than the rest.

It’s All About the Money… or is it not?

Most traditional accounting software only fulfill the need for account entries. However, recognizing that accounting is interlinked with other elements of a business, advanced accounting software now incorporates other processes as well. Besides the ability to handle high liquidity assets such as cash, advanced accounting software such as Kingdee KIS also includes inventory and receivables.

Taxes such as GST in Singapore, or VAT in China can also be processed with the software. This enables an accountant to generate a tax report in minutes, which would otherwise take more time in traditional accounting. At the same time, a business owner can have a comprehensive view of his accounts, easily exporting it into a spreadsheet, or printing out the reports for paper filing.

Business owners want to save time (and money) and would look for the most convenient way to handle the accounts. Software such as Kingdee KIS not only deliver that purpose, but go one step further by integrating purchasing, sales inventory and financial management onto a single platform.

Consolidating Orders and Invoices

One of the most frustrating things while managing the accounts is consolidating multiple sales orders, delivery orders and sales invoices under the same supplier or customer account. If an enterprise goes through thousands of transactions a month, think of how much effort would be needed to have everything organized for the month’s accounts!

Advanced accounting software such as Kingdee KIS recognizes the need for flexibility when generating orders and invoices. For example, when a business receives multiple sales orders from the same customer, these can be consolidated into a single delivery order and the purchases can be delivered at the same time.

In the case where there are multiple delivery orders, they can also be consolidated into a single sales invoice.
With the ability to consolidate orders and invoices, this also makes it easier when accounting for the inventory and sending or making payment.

Tax Reports

Which business in Singapore wants to risk filing the wrong taxes? If your business performs thousands of transactions a month, think of the hassle of filing the taxes if done manually!

Advanced accounting software gives the user the ability to generate a GST report within minutes. Even if you have other businesses in the region such as in China, software such as Kingdee KIS is able to manage and generate VAT reports and import duties.

Traditional software tends to be geographically limited in this aspect, giving way to advanced accounting software that recognizes that growing trend of businesses globalizing.

The World’s Your Market

Speaking about globalizing, you’ll need a multilingual accounting software that also supports multiple currencies. If your business is expanding off-shore, you should definitely look out for such a feature when choosing an accounting software, such as the Kingdee KIS. This solution includes an auto-calculation of exchange differences, saving you the trouble of having to consistently check on exchange rates.

And if operating in China and Hong Kong is what you’re doing and aiming for, you’ll also need an accounting software that includes languages such as Simplified and Traditional Chinese, enabling your employees there to manage your accounts with ease.

Choosing an accounting software doesn’t have to be an extravagant affair. Hopefully, these pointers mentioned above will help you recognize your accounting needs and make a wise business decision. It’s advisable to consider your future business goals when making your choice, to ensure that these features will fulfill your business needs.

Confused?

How about contacting our team at Reach Technologies to show you how awesome our Kingdee KIS accounting software is?

5 Useful Tips to Choose the Best ERP Software for Your Business

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5 Useful Tips to Choose the Best ERP Software for Your Business

ERP software has become an important part of all business organizations. But, most of the companies are not happy with their software. Why? They haven’t chosen the right one. Here are some highly useful tips on how you can choose the best ERP software for your company.

ERP A Major Investment

Every company invests a big amount of money to generate huge profits and among them ERP software has become one of the major investments.

But what if you don’t get the desired outcome from the application even after purchasing the most costly software? It not only hampers your accounts and management procedure but also vastly affects the graph of your profit.

If you ask these organizations about the process of choosing an ERP software, you’ll see that most of them have no answer. Isn’t it funny, especially when this software will play a vital role to figure your balance sheet at the day-end.

So, here we have described some primary things that one should check before purchasing an ERP software.

1. Look Out for Development Platform

One of the benefits of an ERP solution such as Kingdee K/3 is the ability to customize according to a businesss needs. Kingdee K/3 provides uses with a proprietory Business Operating System (BOS), allowing users to customize their operational workflow and generate personalized reports.

A BOS such as the one in the Kingdee K/3 also contains important information about the customization. The BOS retains the customization data so that it remains even during a software upgrade.

Some ERP solutions do not come with a development platform, thus when a system upgrade is carried out, the customization may be lost and has to be re-implemented, which can be costly for a business that needs to outsource this process.

2. Business / Management Report

It’s almost impossible for a business owner to keep a close eye on every process in his business. An reliable and practical ERP solution should have the ability to generate reports that help a business owner analyze the operations of his business.

By providing an overview, the business owner can easily recognize parts of the operations that needs to be improved, to optimize productivity and profits.

By the way, Reach Technologies offer a report writer, so that we can recommend the appropriate customization and understand your business needs before you implement our Kingdee K/3 ERP solution!

3. Scalability

Your company is not going to close in the next few years; rather it will grow more and obviously will create new records – as we wish. But is your software able to fit with the growth?

Can you add necessary features in future? Every good software has the option to expand its features when required without affecting the existing ones.
Some of our clients have started out with a basic ERP system that focused mainly on the Finance and Supply Chain modules.

Because the Kingdee K/3 ERP is flexible, our clients were able to include other modules such as customer relationship management, human resource management and business intelligence to further improve their business operations.

If you would like to include 3rd party softwares such as AutoCAD, Point-of-Sales (POS), MES, Warehouse Management System (WMS) and other industry-specific software, the Kingdee K/3 ERP also allows for such integration.

4. Remote Access for Expanding Off-Shore

Many business owners are expanding their business off-shore to reach a wider target market. If you’re a growing business with sister companies or intend to set up branches region-wide, look out for a remote access feature in the ERP solution, such as the Kingdee K/3 ERP software.

This means that you don’t have to be physically present to know what’s going on and neither do you need to travel frequently just to keep an eye on your businesses. With remote access, you can access important information about your business operations on-the-go.

5. Multiple Databases for Multiple Businesses

Since business owners these days diversify their income streams, you should probably be considering this in your future business plans. By having a system that supports multiple databases, you can easily segregate information of each business using the same software.

Plus, if you have businesses elsewhere that may use a different language interface, such as Traditional or Simplified Chinese, you can easily implement a different language on each database, all without the need for another software.

Besides, the database on Kingdee K/3 ERP uses Microsoft’s SQL, a reliable database platform that doesn’t slow down even when you store tons of information into your system. This is an advantage as self-developed databases may not be as efficient as SQL.

If it seems like an overwhelming load of information to digest, how about letting our team at Reach Technologies help you analyse your business needs? Whatever the size of your business, you definitely need an ERP solution to manage your business operations more efficiently and focus on maximizing profits.

Visit Reach Technologies for more solutions we could offer to improve your company’s performance.

5 Mistakes People Make When Choosing an Accounting System

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5 Mistakes People Make When Choosing an Accounting System

Choosing an Accounting System is a Crucial Step

Account is the backbone of any business organization. So, choosing your accounting system is the most crucial step towards a transparent account and of course a better business.

In the long past manual accounting was the only process to maintain a history of your business transactions. But it was not only a slow process but also was very prone to errors. But today, hardly any organization, apart from the small ones, maintains manual accounting; instead they use accounting software.

So, are they very happy with these accounting applications? If you perform a short survey, you’ll know that most of them are trying their best to adjust with the problems and drawbacks of their application. But, remember, you’re in fact compromising with your business.

Didn’t they make enough research before purchasing their accounting system? In fact, in most of the cases, they aren’t much aware about what exactly they should ask about an accounting software. If you don’t want to repeat the same mistake, here are some guidelines for you.

Unsuitable User Interface

Do all accounting software operate the same way? Not really. The features may be similar, but the user interface tends to differ. Small details such as language can easily be overlooked, especially if you intend to expand your business overseas.

Many Singaporean businesses grow towards China and Hong Kong, which is why Kingdee KIS Accounting offers not only English, but also Traditional and Simplified Chinese interfaces.

Impractical Logic and Database Structure

Though we are not software developers, but we should know that every software works as per the logic structure. The better the logic will be, the better outcome you will get. Often it takes several years to design a software with perfect, intelligent and error-free logical background.

So, ask your software provider to explain the logic of the application. Beware! Don’t be fooled by the geeky terms. Compare it with other accounting software and judge which is better for your business. Never purchase a software without knowing its logic structure.

Also, find out what type of database is being used. While it may seem impressive when a developer claims to have its own developed database, it may not be well-designed, clogging up the system and significantly slowing it down. Always look out for reliable database integration.

For example, the Kingdee KIS Accounting integrates with Microsoft’s My SQL, which is strongly reliable even as a database fills up.

No Taxation and Localisation

Sometimes, business owners get too excited about the extensive list of features in an accounting software that when they jump into a purchase, they later realize that it was a big mistake, because taxation and localisation is not available in the software!

If you’ve tried filing GST reports or import duties manually, you’ll understand that it takes LOTS of time. You may even miss out on reporting some of the taxes, which can seriously mess up your accounts. So always check if the accounting software you’re purchasing supports at least the taxation of the country your business is operating in.

A bare minimum is that it needs to be able to file GST reports. If you’re intending to expand your business to other countries out of Singapore, make sure that your accounting software supports the taxes of that region too.

No Backup Option

Have you ever thought, what will happen if one fine morning you come to know that your software has crashed? Yes, it can happen for several reasons. In such situations you’ll feel just helpless if you haven’t kept any backup of your data.

But this doesn’t mean you need to be tech-saavy to do a backup. Always check how a back-up can be made in your accounting software. For example, Kingdee KIS users can easily backup the database into an external thumb drive.

Such convenience means that you don’t have to be a genius to perform regular back ups, and you don’t have to be worried when your computer crashes!

No Option to Upgrade

It’s common that accounting software goes through upgrades over time, to meet the demands of businesses and make improvements and bug fixes. Failure to keep up will cause an accounting software to be phased out eventually, losing to newer and advanced competitors.

Also, if you were to switch to another accounting software, this can be a hassle as the database may not be supported in the newer software. Thus, it’s a wise choice to ask if an accounting software offers the option of lifetime updates.

Because Kingdee Software Group has been around for years and is one of the leaders in business management solutions, it’s unparalleled technological advancement enables the company to keep up with market trends. Thus, should you choose to implement the Kingdee KIS Accounting into your business, you can rest assure that updates will readily be available.

If you want to avoid these mistakes or think you may already dropped into a pithole by comitting any of these, we can help you!

Talk to us at Reach Technologies and our team of experts will help you make the right choice.

5 Dangers of Free Accounting Software that Every Business Person Should Know

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5 Dangers of Free Accounting Software that Every Business Person Should Know

It sounds good when there’s free accounting software available on the Internet. If you can save some precious dollars, why not, right? Some of this free accounting software comes with an impressive list of features and functions that convince you to download them without any cost.

You may even be led to believe that they are as good as the paid ones. But before you conclude that free accounting software fulfils your business and account needs, we thought we should first, warn you of the dangers of using them.

1. Are They Really Free?

Yes, it’s a big question! Most people search in the internet for free accounting software and download the best one among the hundreds. But they get a big shock after installing the software. It asks to purchase the full version paying the amount mentioned there. Else you’ll be able to use the software only for a few days and then it’ll stop responding. In fact this is a trick used by the unpopular software companies to trap people.

2. Are They Powerful Enough?

No matter how big your organization is, you need a powerful accounting system that can provide you quick and perfect accounts. But, most of the free software are developed by some small companies who never invest much time or effort to make these software powerful enough. They just follow the basic logics of accounts and hardly they perform any thorough testing even. It can be highly dangerous for any company in the long run and when you’ll come to know the drawback, you may not get any chance to rollback.

3. Are They Reliable?

It’s a big question until you have any feedback from a user. There are many software, even the paid ones, that may not be reliable enough. They can crash any moment or may give you a wrong outcome that often may be difficult even to identify, as hardly you’ll manually calculate the result when you already have a software. In addition, in case of these free accounting software, you may be misguided by the fake feedbacks given by some fake users. So, it’s always suggested not to go for these free software; rather pay some dollars and purchase a genuine software from a reputed company – you’ll save much time and money in the long run.

4. Are They Safe?

Here is another shock waiting for you. Many ill-minded software developers use these software as a spyware. They inject the spyware in the backbone of the software. So that people keep it installed in their system as a useful software, while the spyware will transfer all your personal information to some unknown address. However, it may not be applicable for all the free accounting software. But who knows, the free software you have installed is not that one?

5. And Support?

No chance! At least we haven’t heard ever if any free accounting software provider offer any support. All the free accounting software are just use-and-through type. Download the software, install and use. There is no one to help you out if you face any problem. But, if you go for any paid accounting software, you’ll always get full support from the provider that is very important.

It Pays to Invest

So, it is highly recommended not to use any free accounting software, unless you don’t care about the future and invest a few bucks to get a genuine software.

Having said that, Reach Technologies offer a free trial to our Kingdee KIS accounting software. This gives you a hand at our solution to see if it works for you, but trust us, you’ll be impressed at how it’ll fit your business and accounting needs.

Visit Kingdee KIS Accounting Software to learn more.