What should you look for when choosing the right solution for your business. We want to make sure that you understand all the moving parts.
Friendly user interface and navigation. Cloud-based accounting applications—for the most part—look great. They’re not as graphically rich as some types of online services, but they don’t need to be. Graphics are used where it makes sense, like for displaying charts and graphs, and for invoice forms. Navigation and data entry take their cues from desktop software, using static and drop-down lists, icons and buttons, fill-in-the-blank fields, and toolbars.
The subscription model. Desktop software was and is expensive, a few hundred dollars for a product you’re probably not sure upfront that you’ll end up using, and that you’ll be asked to upgrade in 12 months. The online model is very much pay as you go, and pay for just the seats you need. Generally, you can sign up for a free trial and pay anywhere from roughly $5 to $70 per month for an accounting website, and you’re not usually locked into a contract. Furthermore, all the upgrades are built in, and your data is all backed up in the cloud. Of course, if the service (or your internet connection) goes down, you’re out of luck, however.
Multiple versions. Some of the best web-based accounting solutions make more than one level of service available—at different prices—so you can buy the version that most closely matches your needs. When you need more power, you can keep it in the family.
Simple, familiar language. The principles of double-entry accounting are several centuries old. You can’t get away from some of the terms and phrases that wouldn’t normally come up in casual conversation, like debits and credits, general ledger, and chart of accounts. But the developers who have produced today’s best-of-breed accounting sites only subject you to arcane language when it’s absolutely necessary. You can’t get around the fact that double-entry accounting is a complex process that must follow the rules, but these wizard-based services hide as much of the complexity as they can.
Integration with complementary add-ons. The future of accounting lies in two areas: the cloud, and integration. SMBs that experience tremendous growth or increased complexity may need to move up to the next level of cloud-based financial management applications, like Odoo or Intacct. But if a business just needs more flexibility and/or features in a particular area, like invoicing, expenses, or inventory management, there are hundreds of add-on solutions that can connect to services like QuickBooks Online and Xero.
Mobile versions. Because cloud-based accounting applications support anytime, anywhere access to financial data, their developers have made at least a subset of the main site’s features available on smartphones and tablets.
Interactive home pages. Some small business people love working with numbers, but many just want to sign on to their accounting application, do what’s needed, and move on. Interactive home pages, or dashboards on these websites play two primary roles. First, they flag tasks that need attention and provide a bird’s-eye view of your finances, with graphs, charts, and tables that quickly summarize real-time income, expenses, and cash flow. Second, most of these sites’ dashboards contain links to working screens, so you can pay a bill or send an invoice or transfer funds between accounts—whatever needs to be done that day.
