The Botkeeper Blog

You might visualize bookkeeping as sitting at a desk covered in receipts, looking through a green visor at rows and rows of hand-written numbers. And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. Many businesses have traditionally used programs like Excel to handle their business finances. But we live in the future, and technology exists to make this arduous, expensive approach to bookkeeping go the way of the dodo.

Automated booking software has eliminated the need for Excel in many cases, yet the Microsoft tool is still used by businesses and entrepreneurs for their bookkeeping, budgeting, and accounting needs. Sure, Excel can be a valuable bookkeeping tool, but with it has its share of disadvantages too.

Have you ever thought about how the accounting industry mirrors the complexities of our nation? Well, get ready for that suggestion because The Radical CPA sat down with CPA and trendmaster Rick Telberg to talk about the state of accounting today and next year. 

Telberg is the founder of CPATrendlines.com, a data-driven research service for the accounting and finance community. He believes next year might be the best ever for the accounting profession, and the way he talks about it, it sounds like lots of accountants take his side!

At Botkeeper, even though our bots and automation work 24/7, we still have a big team of humans who make really important human decisions everyday...like figuring out what/when/where to eat and drink. You know what that’s like!

But fortunately, we live in an amazing time when you can get nearly anything you want at any time of day. You can literally wade through a buffet of buffet options when you’re hungry enough and feel like getting your money’s worth. And just as important to us as the quality of what we eat, we’re also into tech-driven, responsible innovations in the food and beverage industry. That’s why we’ve pulled together a list of some recent favorites our team can’t get enough of these days.

Let’s dig in!

There’s no time like the present, especially when your career and industry depend on your ability to adopt new tech and take advantage of its benefits. That’s part of what Radical CPA Jody Padar and tech implementer and advisor Dustin Wheeler discussed at this year’s AICPA Engage event.

Padar and Wheeler met on social media and have been friends for over a decade. Padar even admits Wheeler was one of the first Radical CPAs!

Padar asked why he enjoys sharing technology with others in his firm, and Wheeler described how he jumps right into technology to learn it, rather than waiting for someone to explain it to him. He prefers to just mess around with the software and figure it out himself, which is great advice for CPAs who might be apprehensive about getting into technology. 

Check out the interview recording below, or read on for an edited version of the transcript.

The following is a guest contribution from Raincatcher, a business broker focused on helping entrepreneurs buy and sell small- and medium-sized businesses.

When you own a business, it’s easy to view accounting as a necessary evil, but not something that you can strategically use for growth. By re-framing your thinking and approach, you can use accounting to your advantage. Accounting practices can be an integral part of your strategy for growth.