An accountant’s life is filled with challenges. With this competitive landscape, they have to keep clients satisfied by living up to their expectations. Moreover, they also need to navigate through productivity issues, such as compliance adherence, document management, time management, and more.
To overcome these challenges and the hectic daily routine, accountants can take the help of advanced tools available in the market. From time tracking to project management, these tools help accountants optimize productivity.
Let’s check out.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks (QB) by Intuit is one of the market leaders in premium accounting solutions. Intuit offers two QuickBooks versions—Enterprise and QuickBooks Online—that you can choose according to your business requirements. The former is desktop-based, while the latter is cloud-based.
QuickBooks Enterprise offers advanced accounting features, which help accounting firms keep track of finances, handle multiple clients, and manage payroll with ease. With Accountant Center, accountants can easily collaborate with clients to ensure an error-free operation.
QuickBooks Online offers advanced accounting features and cloud computing. Accountants can work on QuickBooks Online from any location on any device. On the other hand, if you're using QuickBooks Desktop, then you can use hosted QuickBooks solution to access all your data from remote location.
Pricing:
QuickBooks Enterprise - Pricing starts from $1922 per year to $4668 per year
QuickBooks Online - Pricing starts from $1.80 per month to $76 per month
Trello
Trello is one of the most interactive project management tools available in the market that optimizes cross-team and intra-team collaboration. It uses visual media of boards, cards, and lists that help users visually organize their tasks.
With Trello, you can automate daily tasks by creating simple rules for task completion, due dates, etc. Moreover, Trello supports integrations with the top tools related to different categories, such as Slack, Paperform, Dropbox, Jira, and more.
Pricing:
Trello offers a free trial for users. However, the paid plans that offer additional features range from Standard ($5 per user per month) to Enterprise ($17.5 per user per month with a minimum user base of 50).
Asana
Asana is a competent work management tool that helps you set, track, and accomplish goals easily. The word” Asana” comes from Sanskrit and means yoga poses. You can use Asana via a web browser or download its app from the website.
The latest feature of Asana is an AI-powered teammate that offers valuable insights and helps in strategic planning. You can also ask Asana AI teammate questions to your queries related to projects, assign tasks automatically, and generate reports.
Integrations: Asana integrates with over 300 apps, such as Splunk, Salesforce, Trello, TSheets, and more, related to categories like Communication, Product Management, and Marketing.
Pricing:
Asana offers two pricing plans - Starter ($10.99 per user per month billed annually) and Advanced ($24.99 per user per month billed annually). It also offers a free version of the app.
Evernote
Evernote is another popular time management application. It has a user-friendly interface where you can see notes, calendars, tasks, receipts, etc. all in one place. Moreover, you can access Evernote from multiple devices and work in offline mode.
With Evernote, multiple people can collaborate seamlessly with real-time editing. You can also give access permissions to users as per their roles.
Integrations: Evernote offers integrations with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive.
Pricing:
Evernote offers three pricing plans - Personal, Professional, and Teams with the option of a free version as well.
Adobe Sign
Adobe Sign, a product by Adobe, helps you e-sign documents without hassles. Adobe Sign, being a cloud-based app, enables users to sign documents from anywhere at any time.
Moreover, it also enables businesses to collect signed documents and store them securely on the cloud. You can also send customized forms to multiple users for signing, and track the status of each easily.
Integrations: Adobe Sign offers integrations with Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Sugar CRM, NetSuite, SharePoint, Outlook, and more.
Pricing:
- For individuals: The two versions available are Standard ($12.99 per month) and PRO ($19.99 per month).
- For businesses: The two versions available are Standard ($14.99 per month) and PRO ($23.99 per month).
Teams
Teams is a Microsoft product as a part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It offers a collaborative platform for businesses of all sizes, whether startups or enterprises, to enhance communication and optimize productivity.
Apart from standard features like video conferencing, file sharing, and screen sharing, Teams also provides new-age features like Avatars, 3D spaces, and polling. Moreover, each user gets up to 10 GB of cloud storage and 30 hours of meeting time.
Integrations:
With Teams, you also get the benefit of integrating with other Microsoft Suite apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You can also integrate other apps, such as Trello, Asana, and GitHub.
Pricing:
- Microsoft Team Essentials: $4 per user per month
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $6 per user per month
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.5 per user per month
Slack
Slack is a productivity enhancement tool that helps users simplify tasks and manage projects with ease. In Slack, you can create channels pertaining to different teams, topics, or projects, where people common to that channel can communicate easily, eliminating the need for endless email threads. Moreover, you can also message people directly or collaborate with external people, such as vendors. In addition to chatting, you can also do video conferencing with your team members.
Slack also lets you automate daily tasks and customize workflows using Workflow Builder.
Integrations: Slack offers integrations to over 2600 applications, enabling you to create a comprehensive business solution. Some major apps include Google Sheets, Zoom, Jira Cloud, Asana, Salesforce, and more.
Pricing:
Slack offers three pricing plans: Pro, Business+, and Enterprise Gold, with the option of a free version.
SmartVault
A cloud-based document management and storage platform, SmartVault, offers businesses a comprehensive solution for document sharing. It offers robust data security for documents for diverse industries like accounting, finance, and legal with multiple security safeguards and regulatory compliance, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and FINRA. SmartVault also offers advanced search capabilities with metadata tagging.
Integrations: SmartVault offers integrations with popular apps, such as Outlook, DocuSign, and QuickBooks.
Pricing:
- Standard - $25 per user per month
- Accounting Pro - $45 per user per month
- Accounting Unlimited - $65 per user per month
- Business Pro - $50 per user per month
Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud-based data storage platform where users can store their files securely. Google stores your files in its highly secure data centers and offers advanced security for your files, such as data encryption and ransomware protection.
Moreover, it has a granular identity and access management system where users can set permissions (editor, viewer, commentator) for each file before giving access to a user.
Pricing:
Personal: No Cost For 15 GB
Business Standard: $12 per user per month for 2 TB
Optimize Productivity with the Power of Cloud
These apps help optimize productivity and reduce the mental stress of an accountant. However, if you want a one-stop solution where all these apps can work well together, you must opt for cloud computing. On the Cloud platform, you can integrate any number of apps with no limitations on data storage and system resources.
ACE offers accounting-specific cloud solutions with robust data security, unlimited scalability, 24/7 customer support, and 99.99 percent uptime. Contact our solutions consultant now to try our advanced cloud solution for free.
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