Just as your work in architecture requires a great deal of precision, so does your firm's bookkeeping. At any point in time, you may have multiple projects on the go, requiring a great deal of effort when it comes to budgeting both time and resources.
Fortunately, numerous accounting software and tools can be utilized by your firm to speed up the bookkeeping processes, allowing you to focus on what you do best; building for your clients and building your business. Here are 5 accounting software and tools to streamline your architecture firm.
1. QuickBooks Online for Bookkeeping
If you are the owner of a smaller architecture firm, QuickBooks Online can provide you with the bookkeeping assistance you need. One of the most significant advantages of this software is its ability to be accessed on the go. QuickBooks Online is entirely cloud-based, meaning all your information is saved to the cloud. You can quickly view all your bookkeeping and financial data from anywhere, on any device, even while out in the middle of a job site.
As an architect, there is a good chance that your qualifications are in high demand, meaning that having multiple projects on the go at one time is a likely possibility. QuickBooks Online gives you the benefit of tracking all of these different projects using their class function and performing job costing to determine which potential projects will return a profit and what the expenses are for each specific job.
With this online program, you can also send out invoices to your clients and provide them with reminders when payment due dates are on the horizon.
As a bonus, QuickBooks online can easily integrate with practice management software like BQE Core, making your job much easier.
2. Dext Prepare for Expense Management
Architecture firms deal with a great deal of both billable and non-billable expenses, which must be accurately tracked and allocated. Dext Prepare is an excellent accounting software program that allows you the ability to track your expenses and assign them to the correct projects. This program can help you manage your costs by utilizing OCR technology to read the information on your invoices and allocate them to specific projects.
Your business also requires different materials for each job site and fees from other professionals, such as realtors and lawyers. Dext Prepare can help you manage and streamline your accounts payable process as well, ensuring everyone gets paid on time.
3. Rotessa for Online Billing
Your architecture projects are usually quite large and, in many cases, can span a considerable amount of time, lasting months or even years. Managing your billing properly for these projects can mean the difference between having a healthy cash flow or not.
Splitting your bills by percentage billing means that you have to rely on receiving cheques from your clients. Most of these bills will be too large for credit card payments which means that the health of your cash flow is at the mercy of your client and in the hands of the bank.
Fortunately, there is a solution. Rotessa is a pre-authorized debit platform that allows you to charge your client's bank account for all billings automatically. You can schedule a one-time or recurring payment that will be withdrawn from your client's account and directly deposited into yours.
4. Plooto for Contractor Payments
You deal with multiple different vendors and contractors to get the job done. Maintaining good relationships with these contractors is vital to the success of your business, and you must be able to procure materials and work closely with these vendors to complete a project. Plooto is a payment processing tool that allows you to streamline the accounts payable process.
Plooto integrates with cloud accounting software like QuickBooks Online and pulls your latest accounts payable listing to show who requires payments giving you the convenient option of paying your suppliers electronically on the platform.
This ensures all of your bills are paid on time, avoiding late penalties and fines. It also minimizes the cost and hassle of printing and mailing cheques. Plus, if multiple people must approve a payment, Plooto will email them for full authorization first before electronically sending funds.
Not only will Plooto keep your suppliers and contractors happy, but it will also improve your record-keeping, giving you the freedom to spend your time doing more important things than making payments.
5. QuickBooks Time for Time Tracking
Every architecture firm needs a time tracking tool that will allow them to track billable hours and make sure employees are spending their time efficiently. Inefficient time tracking can result in your firm missing out on charging for billable activities.
When your firm can complete a project on time, within the targeted number of hours, then your total target billing will have been met. Staying within this target is essential for meeting deadlines and keeping your firm's projects on track. QuickBooks Time can help architecture firms with both time tracking and project tracking and has specifically designed functionality for the construction industry.
An advantage of this app is its ability to be accessed on mobile, allowing staff to clock in and out no matter their location. It also gives the firm the visibility to track different staff members that are working on various projects. QuickBooks Time also offers a project's functionality that allows you the ability to estimate project hours based on past projects and compare budget to actual hours on each project.
There is no denying the fact that your architecture firm has a lot of important, minute details that must be carefully and adequately managed for success. Dealing with bookkeeping tasks shouldn't have to be one of them. Fortunately, numerous different tools and software programs can make the task of bookkeeping much simpler, automating some vital processes that will go a long way to saving you time and money.
For more information on the software and tools that your architecture firm can benefit from, contact Enkel today. We can help you pick the most suitable software and tools to manage your bookkeeping processes, making your architecture business more profitable and efficient.
How We Select and Evaluate Our Software Recommendations
We thoroughly research and test the apps we include in our regular workflow for Client bookkeeping services. After deciding on criteria for evaluating the software and then researching the app itself, we tested the app, noting its strengths and weaknesses. We then work with the app for at least a few weeks before deciding whether to recommend it to our readers. We use the software as it was designed for its intended tasks. For a detailed walk-through of how we select and evaluate software, please see the details of our process.
