Do you know what automated bookkeeping is or how it benefits accounting firms?

Don’t worry—you’re not alone. Lots of people have questions about what exactly automated bookkeeping is. To help, we've put together a quick, simple overview of how automated bookkeeping works and how accounting firms can easily integrate it into their existing business practices.

Let’s jump in!

The internet is full of misinformation, and that’s no surprise to anyone. In fact, 52% of Americans believe they’re served fake news on a regular basis. And the leading source of misinformation? You guessed it—social media. A classic example: how many times have you seen headlines in your feed announce the death of a beloved celebrity, only to find out later that you were duped?

It happens all the time.

Here’s some exciting news for automation nerds like us: automated bookkeeping services are rapidly gaining in popularity! We know—it’s pretty cool. In fact, according to Sage’s Practice of Now 2020 report, 73% of surveyed accounting professionals are confident when it comes to providing tech recommendations like AI and automation.

With an ever-changing landscape, the accounting industry has seen drastic disruption over the past few years. Accounting is a profession with many nuances—working long hours, keeping up with evolving tax laws, managing complex client relationships, etc.—how does a firm manage to stay competitive when new obstacles seem to emerge every day?

As a leader in the accounting automation space, we’re overjoyed to join the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), a nonprofit dedicated to unifying the financial industry around a common, interoperable, royalty-free standard for secure and convenient consumer and business access to their financial data.

There used to be this notion in accounting that if you were an early adapter to technology, you were considered progressive. Industry veterans might have looked at you as though you were some foolhardy explorer on a wasteful quest to burn budget on sleek tools—only to produce mediocre results (at best).

Zack Gould, co-founder of G&N Insurance, a home, auto, and commercial insurance provider, was spending 10+ hours per week completing the bookkeeping tasks for his growing company. Zack knew that he wanted to spend more of his time focusing on his relationships with mortgage lenders and referral partners and less of his time focusing on the books. He decided to hire Botkeeper.

Watching the accounting space over the last 5 years has been quite a whirlwind for an industry that was like a dinosaur for more than a decade! Within those prehistoric times, many accounting firm and business owners associated doing their books with the words “time-consuming” and “tedious,” and it makes sense—to this day, many accounting firms rely on spreadsheets to manage their clients’ books. Can you believe that?!

Protobi, a survey analytics application, was using a traditional bookkeeping firm to manage its books prior to enlisting Botkeeper, but they weren’t getting the full-service experience they sought. The company decided to replace the bookkeeping firm with Botkeeper, an automated bookkeeping solution. As a result, Protobi was able to customize their bookkeeping package, including creating a streamlined automated invoice process for their customers and getting the real-time financial insights that they needed in order to make good business decisions and continue to scale.

Accounting professionals understand the importance of an accurate income statement...it's a bit like a thermometer—you can use it to gauge whether things are going well or if your company is at risk of going under. But do business owners get it? (If you're an accountant reading this post, share it with your clients!)

Whether you’re an owner or an accounting professional helping business owners, it’s no surprise that running a company requires wearing a lot of hats—manager, sales associate, HR coordinator, operations analyst. It can quickly become exhausting and overwhelming!