Regardless of industry, business size, or location, entrepreneurs share a common vision for finding a better way to do things. As a brewery owner, your accounting needs are unique. But industry-relevant apps and software solutions can help you achieve greater success by way of a more efficient bookkeeping system. Let’s take a look at some essential bookkeeping tools you can use to streamline your brewery’s bookkeeping process.
Online Accounting Software
The right bookkeeping software is fundamental to your success as a brewery owner. Cloud-based accounting software like QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Xero are ideal because they allow you to track real-time financial transactions related to your expenses, revenues, payroll, and taxes.
Cloud-based accounting software also supports collaboration between you and your bookkeeping professional by enabling shared access from multiple remote locations. You can also easily integrate with a host of brewery-friendly apps and accounting solutions through your cloud-based accounting software and consolidate all your financial information on a single platform.
Brewery Management Software
Stringent record-keeping and easy access to vital documents like ingredient lists, beer destruction tallies, and product destination details are essential when you operate a brewery. But better records management is only one of many benefits offered by brewery management software.
An end-to-end business management program like Ekos Brewmaster - created specifically for the craft brewery industry - lets you manage your business from anywhere. More importantly, it simplifies the distinct processes surrounding the brewing and selling of beer.
You can manage inventory, track production step-by-step, even monitor your sales performance – all in real-time. And Ekos Brewmaster integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks Online, allowing you or your bookkeeper to sync items like sales invoices directly to your accounting system.
Payroll Management Solutions
Every brewery owner understands that less time spent on administrative chores means more time for perfecting their craft and ultimately growing their business. Payworks Canada is an actively serviced payroll software solution that takes care of converting your employees’ work hours into direct deposits or physical paycheques.
Payworks performs mandatory source deductions - including federal and provincial taxes, and WCB premiums - and submits government remittances directly to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) on your company’s behalf. The program also issues Records of Employment and employee T4s, and can push the payroll information directly into your QBO file.
Accounts Payable Applications
Breweries are often burdened with large volumes of accounts payable. Fortunately, apps like Plooto and Beanworks take much of the work out of managing your payables by taking papers out of the equation.
Both applications integrate with QuickBooks and Xero. Both leave control of online invoice approvals and initiation of virtual payments firmly in the hands of the user. But while Plooto is primarily focused on administering those payments (and ensuring your accounting records are automatically updated), Beanworks takes care of the data entry side of your invoice processing as well.
Expense Management and Receipt Tracking Applications
Wish you could do away with saving, sorting, storing, and physically sharing hard copies of brew operation expense receipts with your bookkeeper? With Dext Prepare, you can. Compatible with both Xero and QuickBooks, Dext Prepare is a mobile app that extracts expense data from photographs of bills and receipts that you take with your phone.
Dext Prepare eliminates the need for manual data entry, automatically sorts expense information by date and vendor, and stores your documents as digital images deemed perfectly acceptable by the CRA come tax time. Business credit card purchases, corporate expense documents, and accounts payable invoices can all be put through Dext Prepare.
Scheduling and Time Tracking Applications
Even if your brewery doesn’t charge clientele by the hour, going paperless with a full-featured app like QuickBooks’ TSheets simplifies employee time tracking and streamlines your scheduling. Employees use the app to click in and out during work shifts - you review and approve their hours before submitting them to your payroll professional.
TSheets also lets you create, adjust, and share work schedules directly with your personnel. The app syncs easily with other QuickBooks-friendly systems and provides valuable insight into job costing and profitability.
Point-of-Sale Systems
Does your brewery have a tasting room? If so, you’ll need a solid POS (point-of-sale) system like Square. Purposely built for simplicity, Square is easy to set up, easy to use, and offers good data transfer capability.
The system’s software pairs well with either QuickBooks or Xero and is highly integrated, allowing your business to accept payment by credit card, cash, or gift card. With Square, you can track both your inventory and your customers’ tasting histories, which makes it ideal for building a client database.
Remember: with the right tools and a better system in place for managing your brewery’s bookkeeping, cash flow, and financial data, you’ll be well on your way to making better decisions for growing a scalable business.
If you’re a brewery owner looking to streamline your brewery’s bookkeeping, we can help!
At Enkel, we have a team of experienced bookkeepers and professional accountants that can take care of your books while you focus on doing what you do best - creating the best brews. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you grow!
How We Select and Evaluate Our Recommended Software
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.
