In today's world, bookkeeping has become more complex than ever. With so many clients, with their multitudes of transactions to process and so much data to manage, it can be challenging to ensure that the data quality is up to par. When I think of what I want for client data quality, I think of the Olympic motto: faster, higher stronger. Thankfully, there are now plenty of applications available that can help me achieve this. I love a handy automation!
One of the biggest challenges in bookkeeping is ensuring that the data is accurate and complete. It’s the old “Garbage in-Garbage out” idea. If the data isn’t accurate, the financial reports aren’t accurate so the business is flying blind. But it can be time-consuming to manually check every single transaction for each of your clients every quarter at BAS time. Checking and correcting the data of a new client can also take up a lot of time. If the previous work has been completed by a contract bookkeeper, you can be pretty sure that the data will be at least 95% accurate. But even for a professional, it's easy to miss mistakes or anomalies. So how do we solve this? With the help of fabulous applications like XBert, Zerlock and VerifyIQ, you can now automate the process of checking data quality and make data 100% accurate before the BAS crunch time.
These sorts of applications have built-in features that allow you to check for things like consistent coding of expenses, missing receipts and invoices, and they generate reports that give you an overview of all the transactions that need to be corrected. This makes it much easier to identify the errors or inconsistencies in the data, such as duplicate transactions and contacts or missing/incorrect ABNs. I was blown away with the level of detail of inconsistencies highlighted on a Xero file I thought was pretty perfect. They even told me I had been working for Appy Books for 9 years and that I should be accruing long service leave for myself. I have absolutely earned it!
The most significant benefit of using these data quality applications is they can save you precious time. But more importantly, they also significantly reduce the risk of human error. Because they use machine learning, the data is checked for consistency and accuracy. If you have more than one person completing bookkeeping tasks for a business, differences in processing can occur. Having an app taking a global non-judgemental view of data accuracy can help to alleviate data entry judgement calls.
Overall, using data quality applications can be a real game-changer for anyone looking to report their business finances more accurately. With so many features available, it's easy to see why they've become so popular with bookkeepers and accountants in recent years. So why not give one a try and see how they can help you hit your data quality target. And if you need a suggestion for our app pick, give us a shout!
