As a small business owner, you know how precious your time is and it is often in short supply as you try to keep on top of sales, paying invoices, networking, advertising – and all the other aspects of running your business.
Finding ways to help make your processes more streamlined and efficient can play a big part in ensuring you can run your business smoothly and with as little stress as possible.
Maybe you’ve heard AutoEntry and Receipt Bank mentioned on a business forum you belong to, or your bookkeeper or accountant have suggested using them.
In this blog I am going to explain what they are and how they can help you.
What are AutoEntry and Receipt Bank?
AutoEntry and Receipt Bank are two pieces of software that can help automate the task of entering purchase invoices and receipts data into your accounting software.
They can make the whole process of entering invoices and receipts into your accounting software more streamlined and efficient.
How can they help make it easier to run your business?
There are many benefits to using this type of software:
- frees up your time to focus on other tasks
- your data is stored securely in the cloud so you don’t need to store paper copies
- less chance of you losing those small receipts as you can take photos of them while you are out and about
- helps you to meet the Making Tax Digital requirements by attaching images of the invoices to each transaction
- verifies the accuracy of the data.
Will AutoEntry and Receipt Bank work with my current accounting software?
You can use AutoEntry and Receipt Bank with a number of different online accounts packages including QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, Kashflow and Free Agent.
You can find a complete list of packages on their websites: AutoEntry and Receipt Bank.
How much does AutoEntry and Receipt Bank cost?
When it comes to pricing – each software works in a different way.
AutoEntry:
Uses a credit system where you pay for a set number of credits per month (any credits you don’t use are rolled over for a 3-month period).
The number of credits used for each upload depends on the features used (ie 1 credit for invoices/bills/receipts, 2 credits for line items extracted, 3 credits for bank and credit card statements – per page).
If you run out of credits you can use up to twice the number of credits for your current subscription – you are then charged at the same rate and added onto the next month’s bundle.
You can have as many users as you need at no further cost.
A free trial period is available.
Costs start from as little as £9/month for 50 credits.
Receipt Bank:
You are allowed to submit the number of items per month as your plan allows.
There is a fair usage policy where you are given a bank of the number of items for a 3-month period – if you need to submit more items one month, you aren’t charged extra as long as you don’t go over the total items allowed in that period. (For example, if you are on the plan where you get 50 items/month, you would get a bank of 150 items/3-months – if one month you submit 75 items, month 2 you submit 25, and month 3 you submit 40 – as long as you don’t go over 150 items in total you won’t pay any extra).
You are prompted to update your subscription level based on how you regularly use the system (ie if you regularly submit more items than allowed).
Single User plans (suitable for a sole trader) starts from £9.99/month for 50 items/month.
Multi-User plans start from £20/month for 50 items/month – you can have as many profiles on the multi-user plans as needed.
A free trial is available.
For work at home busineses, I recommend AutoEntry.
I use AutoEntry with several of my bookkeeping clients in conjunction with QuickBooks Online.
I have used it for uploading and entering supplier invoices into the accounts, and it made the process of entering the data into the accounts much easier and efficient.
The clients can have the app on their phones, and they can easily snap photos of parking receipts, train tickets, or refreshment receipts while they are out and about meaning they don’t lose the paperwork and it’s all uploaded to the accounting software.
By having clients send supplier invoices straight to the dedicated e-mail address provided, we’ve cut out a step in the process and made it far more streamlined.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help make your bookkeeping processes more streamlined, please don’t hesitate to contact me.