Many midsize companies spend more time on accounting than they need to, simply because they do manually what their financial management software can just as easily do for them. Though executives are often unaware of it, modern accounting solutions can automate a wide range of labor-intensive tasks, freeing up finance personnel for more productive work. In Summary:| • | Configure your accounting system to distribute recurring reports and make recurring payments automatically. | | • | Use alerts to notify managers in advance of overdrawn budgets, exceeded credit limits, and other financial problems. | | • | Download spreadsheet data via your accounting software's import function rather than inputting it by hand. |
 | We have seen customers reduce their annual budgeting process from a month and a half's worth of effort to just a week by implementing an automated budgeting and forecast solution. |  | | Tom Higginbotham
Technical specialist
Microsoft | |
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"Most businesses tap only a small portion of the functionality offered by their accounting system," notes J. Carlton Collins, president of Accounting Software Advisor LLC, a consulting firm based in Norcross, Ga. Here are some of the most powerful but least utilized automation features typically available in today's accounting packages, according to Collins and other accounting software experts. 1. Prepare and distribute reports automaticallyAt most companies, managers rely on a standard set of daily, weekly, and monthly finance reports. Rather than have accounting staff members prepare and distribute those reports, you can configure many financial management applications to produce them automatically at scheduled intervals and then e-mail them to a preset list of recipients. In Microsoft Dynamics accounting systems, the feature that handles such tasks is variously known as the process server, application server, or batch server. Reporting tools such as Microsoft FRx Report Manager enable you to create complex quarterly or annual reports automatically. Such reports typically combine text, charts, graphics, and financial data from multiple systems in carefully designed layouts. Using FRx Report Manager or a similar reporting utility, you can have your accounting system quickly assemble and arrange those components for you based on preexisting formats that you define. 2. Make recurring payments onlinePaying the health insurance or phone bill each month is a time-consuming chore. But if your financial system supports online bill paying, you can process recurring payables automatically. "All you have to remember is to keep enough money in the account to cover the payment," says Brent Goodfellow, a consultant with the Accounting Technology Resource Network LLC, an accounting software advisory group based in Ann Arbor, Mich. Microsoft Dynamics GP is one of many accounting systems that provide electronic banking functionality. Learn more about the e-banking functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP by downloading this Portable Document File (619.27 KB). 3. Receive automatic notice of impending problemsThe best time to find out about a financial problem is before it happens. Using the alerts technology available in many accounting systems, you can warn appropriate managers of potential trouble. For example, you can instruct your financial software to notify the credit manager any time a customer comes within 2 percent of his or her credit limit, or inform project managers that they are at risk of exceeding their budget. With Microsoft Dynamics solutions, you can send alerts to an employee's e-mail inbox, desktop, or even to an intranet home page. 4. Transfer data from spreadsheets electronicallySpreadsheets play a vital role in budgeting and other financial processes. But many managers transfer spreadsheet data to their accounting software manually, which can be slow and inaccurate. To save time and reduce errors, use the import functionality available in most accounting packages to download financial data from spreadsheets. For example, ICAN Software, a Tacoma, Wash.-based solution provider and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, recently used the Integration Manager (Portable Document Format file, 635.66 KB) feature of Microsoft Dynamics GP to automate a payroll process for one of its clients. Before, managers at the client's various locations faxed payroll spreadsheets to the head office, where an assistant entered the data into the accounting system by hand. Now branch offices use a Web-based interface to submit payroll spreadsheets electronically to Microsoft Dynamics GP. Integration Manager not only imports the data but checks it for incorrect payment and job function codes as well. To save even more time, consider replacing the spreadsheets you use with specialized software products. For instance, Microsoft Forecaster provides planning and workflow tools that simplify the budgeting process and integrate with Microsoft Dynamics accounting products. "We have seen customers reduce their annual budgeting process from a month and a half's worth of effort to just a week by implementing an automated budgeting and forecast solution," says Tom Higginbotham, a Microsoft Dynamics technical specialist. 5. Automatically reconcile ledgers and account statementsReconciling general ledger reports is such tiresome work that some businesses unwisely neglect it, says Victoria Yudin, president of Edison, N.J.-based Flexible Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Dynamics solution provider. Yudin, however, uses the functionality in Microsoft Dynamics GP to help her clients identify discrepancies between sub-ledgers and master ledgers automatically. If your bank and your accounting software both support online reconciliation, you can reconcile bank statements automatically. The Bank Reconciliation
(Portable Document Format file, 516.02 KB) module in Microsoft Dynamics GP, for example, even handles exception reporting for entries in your account statements with no counterpart in your financial records, such as deposit reversals and altered check amounts. Whatever you automate with your accounting software, make sure to record the details in writing and share them widely. Too often, only a few insiders understand how an automated process works. Over time, as such people move into new roles or retire, companies can experience what Higginbotham calls "knowledge erosion." The best antidotes are careful documentation and ongoing training, he observes. After all, it would be a shame to equip your company with all the time-saving power of a modern accounting system and then leave most of that power unused. Rich Freeman is a Seattle-based freelance writer specializing in business and technology. He has more than 14 years of strategic marketing and communications experience in the IT industry.
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