Accounting Solutions Made to Scale and Excel: Grow the Confident, Fast, Efficient Way

Since the COVID-19 virus caused businesses around the world to shut down their offices and send their employees home, there’s been a concerted effort to adapt to working remotely. 

Throughout it all, one thing has become overwhelmingly self-evident: the “old way” of doing things wasn’t scalable for the future, especially month-end close processes.

Now, more than six months into this new normal, many companies are finding new life in automating many of their accounting processes. 

In the years to come, we predict that the organizations that take this time to standardize and automate will see returns. Organizations that fail to update outdated manual processes will risk becoming obsolete.

Say Farewell to Inefficient Reconciliations and Hello to Three-Way Matching

Long gone are the days when customers would pay only in cash. Now customers conveniently order food through third-party vendors and pay for online orders with credit cards on third-party sites. Across every industry, consumers have multiple ways of paying for products and services, which can result in lost cash, confusing transactions and incorrect reconciliations. 

With each of these transactions, accounting needs to document where all your money is coming in from, how much money you may be spending on these alternative payment options and how much cash you have available now.

Long-gone are the days of simple matching, you need to be able to three-way match to connect all these transactions seamlessly. 

With an accounting solution that provides three-way matching capabilities, your accounting team is able to import financial information from various sources such as:

• Banks
• Credit card processors
• 3rd party service providers

Now, more than ever, you need to know what’s in the bank and where your money is coming from, so you can effectively manage your working capital to shift and scale as the opportunities arise. 

Let’s say you own a restaurant…

Traditionally, your primary revenue stream came from diners who paid with cash or credit card. 

Today, 3rd party service providers add a new facet to that income. Instead of reconciling just the cash and credit cards, you’re now adding in money transfers from DoorDash, Uber Eats, GrubHub and other third party apps. 

You need an accounting solution that can handle both the process of three-way matching and the sheer amount of three-way matching. Without it, there is a lot left to interpretation. Having your cash accounted for at all times is vital to staying open and prepared during these times. 

Find Your Balance With Accounting Solutions That Works For You

Reconciliation is filled with many repetitive tasks. Leaving your accounting team to manually enter the data takes time away from more complex tasks, like future planning and leaves room for error.

By automating the majority of low-risk tasks in your month-end close, you are able to:

• Streamline your reconciliation process
• Remove the potential of human error
• Provide month-to-month consistency 

Let’s go back to your restaurant. 

You purchase 1000 new takeaway boxes each month to keep up with the demand coming from your new curbside delivery service. 

Instead of having your accountants manually reconcile the data regarding the 1000 new takeaway boxes, wouldn’t it be nice to have the process be automated?

Shifting this task from manual reconciliation to automation takes the task off of your ever-growing to-do list and removes the human error aspect that haunts all manual reconciliation processes.

Plan for the Unprecedented with FP&A That Pivots For You 

Financial Planning and Analysis – a necessary, yet daunting task for any finance team, especially in these unpredictable times where every plan must be rethought. 

You need confidence and full visibility into your entire financial portfolio from one convenient location, so you can really dig in and see where you stand from every aspect of your business. Adra can produce balances that are considered certified for use in the FP&A process, so your team can go into planning knowing that your accounts have been substantiated and reconciled. 

What will next year hold? No one knows for sure, but our reports can help you plan for every avenue of unexpected.

Need to track specific transactions over multiple months, quarters or years so you can forecast how it’s going to go next year? Done. 

Remember your restaurant? 

FP&A wisely suggested you invest in a new leather-bound menu, with embossed headings on the top, to emulate the luxury your restaurant wants to exude. 

Considering how much you spend each month to replace lost and damaged physical menus, a sturdier and more substantial menu seems like a good investment.

However, in response to COVID-19, your entire industry has pivoted away from physical menus. The new preference is a virtual menu which would allow your customers to see and search your menu and nutritional facts from any mobile device. 

An accounting software with endless reporting capabilities can help you determine if you have the financial ability to drop your physical menu investment and pivot with the rest of your industry. 

Is Your Accounting Solution Ready To Scale?

Growth is inevitable in a post-COVID world. Seriously. Where else is there to go but up? That means you need to be prepared to scale.

When adjusting to a new accounting solution, it’s easiest to begin slow and steady. Start out with our recommended checklist:

• Begin using your accounting solution as a repository to store critical documents 
• Create a simple workflow process to check tasks off your month-end close list
• Add automation to the system or start creating new workflows to optimize your processes
• Document everything along the way. This helps you bring new staff up to speed quicker when you’re scaling up. 

Modern Accounting In The Post-COVID World

So what will you do when the pandemic is over and you find yourself in a post-COVID world? With the Adra Suite of financial solutions, you’ll have a business continuity plan in place – one that will help you optimize your month-end close process for a modern world. 

• Take the mundane out of month-end close with Adra Balancer
• Three-way matching with ease with Adra Matcher
• Pull the reports you need to confidently plan the future with the full Adra Suite

If you’re ready to see how Adra can help you find success in a post-COVID world, drop us a note to schedule a demo.