Setting Up a Paperless Accounting Flow Greg Lam @gregalam Who am I? • Greg Lam, a Canadian living in Tokyo, Japan • Also known as the Small Biz Doer • Serial entrepreneur • Accountex Report writer • Teach people about cloud business apps Agenda • Why and How • Document Management • Online Payments • E-Signatures • Accounting Software Why go Paperless Pros • Access from anywhere at anytime with any device • Control access • Better search • Protection from local disaster Cons • Accidental deletion • Online theft • Archiving not a priority of subscription services How • Identify your paperless needs • Try solutions on test accounts first • Don’t expect a seamless solution • Decide if you need past documents / records digitized Document Management Overview • A solution for each type of document? • To attach or not in accounting software? • Can you trust OCR / human verification? Reconciliation - Hubdoc • Docs you’d need to complete a reconciliation • Bank statements, receipts, invoices, bills • Fetches documents via logging in • Attaches documents to transactions in accounting software • Feeds do break • Email Forwarding • Integrations with many apps • Organizing files and batch editing could be better Expenses - Tallie • Mileage, employee reimbursements • Expense Reports • Can import bank and credit card account transactions • Batch edit transactions • Approval process • Duplicate detection • Integrations with QBO, Xero, Bill.com, SmartVault Company and Client Docs - SmartVault • Integrated with Intuit ProSeries and Intuit Lacerte for tax document management • Document exchange with clients • Permission based document management system • Map the drive on local computer as well as web portal • Takes a while to load up in accounting software • Accounting Pro Plan Required for accounting software • Started a few years ago, so interface not modern Payables and Receivables - Bill.com • Accounts Payable and Receivable • Approval process • Can collect and distribute payments (including sending paper checks) • Scheduled payments • Doesn’t push documents to accounting software? • Interface and workflow a bit old Others • Expenses: Expensify, Concur • Receipts: ReceiptBank, Shoeboxed • Practice Management: SuiteFiles • Storage: Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box Doc Mgmt Questions to Ask • Can you access offline? • Can you get an organized backup? • What happens when you stop subscription? • Does it integrate well with accounting software? • Does it store docs in additional service? • How secure and reliable is it? • Do you need to attach the documents to your accounting software? Things to watch out for • Duplicates, where’s the master • How many systems do you use? • Be careful of creating two accounting transactions instead of one Online Payments Overview • Transaction fees can be more $ • Monthly fees are great • Signing up is easy • Pooled risk • There are integrations with cloud accounting • Portability of data Stripe • No monthly or signup fees • Credit card, Bitcoin, ACH • ACH 0.80%, capped at $5, no monthly or verification fees. Uses Plaid for verification (logging in online to bank) • Very developer friendly (on many cloud accounting platforms) PayPal • No signup or monthly fees (for basic package) • Standard for online payments • Now has better integrations within cloud accounting QuickBooks Payments • Free and easy to sign up (basic package) • Only integrates with QuickBooks, but integration is solid • Allows for ACH at $0.50 • Bitcoin • If you use QuickBooks Online, it’s a no brainer (and only option) Others • SquareS • Braintree • Authorize.net • Sage Payments Accounting for online payments • Accounting software is getting better, but still not there • Difference between payment for online invoice vs. retail shop sales • Many cases where generating invoice through accounting software is not feasible • Batch record data when high volume Payments Questions to Ask • How do your customers like to pay? • How much flexibility with fees do you have? • Is there a way to manually process payments? • Can you choose payment method options (only credit card / only ACH)? • How is the reporting? • How is the integration with accounting software E-Signing • ESIGN act of 2000 • EU, United Kingdom, Canada, and others • Can’t force the use of electronic signature • Certain non-business contracts can’t be e-signed • Verification 5 Ways to Sign 1. Insert photo of signature 2. /s/Name or /Name/ in document 3. Reply with acceptance in an email 4. Paying an invoice 5. E-sign services like DocuSign or Adobe Sign Premium plans • Docusign and Adobe Sign • Signer doesn’t need to pay nor have account • Can download a PDF copy • Encryption • Mobile signing DocuSign Plans Adobe Sign Signing an Adobe Sign Doc Audit Report Adobe + Xero + Australia Tax E-Sign Questions to Ask • How complicated are your contracts? • Do you need more complicated forms? • Do you need more identity verification? • Do you need templates? • Do you need attachments? • Digital Signatures - PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) and CA (Certificate Authority)? • Do you need accounting software integration? Cloud Accounting Software • All-in-one… sometimes • Basic functionality QuickBooks Online • Payments: Native Only - Inuit Payments • Document Attachment: Native and add-on • E-Sign: Native Only – mobile app (Estimates and Invoices) Xero • Payments: Add-on only – PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net and others • Document Attachment: Native and add-on • E-Sign: Native and add-on – Accept estimates, RightSignature, and Adobe and Australia Tax. Can use third-party like Workato for connecting to DocuSign • Gmail and Microsoft Office integration for CRM Others • Zoho Books • FreshBooks • 17hats • Qwilr • Wave • Kashoo Cloud Accounting Questions to Ask • Do I need to accomplish the tasks through the app? • Are the basics good enough? • What’s easiest for the customer? • What’s easiest for the company? • Connector – Unify, a2x, onesaas, zapier, workato Take Away • All-in-one near impossible unless solopreneur • Solutions should be able to stand alone if integration breaks • $ cost vs non-digital can be more, but time saved usually warrants • Customers needing to sign up can be an impediment • Watch out for duplicate data • Consolidation / daily batch reports Questions? • Greg Lam • [email protected] • Twitter @gregalam .