Can you access your financial information anywhere? Anytime?

Accurate and timely financial statements are critical for business success because the quality of the decisions you make is totally dependant upon the quality of the information you rely on.

If you can’t access up to date and accurate financial reports from anywhere and at anytime then you have a problem.

As a small business owner you should be able to know exactly the financial health of your business at any point in time. Your ability to make the best decisions for your business is severely reduced if you don’t have access to accurate financial reports when you need them.

Why order more stock when your stock turnover has slowed. Or, why keep extending credit to a customer when they haven’t paid for 90 days?

If you don’t have access to up to date and accurate reports you might just do these things. I’m sure you will agree that this is not good for your business.

I’ve said before that most traditional small business accounting systems prevent the small business owner from gaining access to their financial information.  This is because the information is locked on a desktop computer in the office. This is usually not the small business owners computer, but one of their employees. The small business owner can’t access it because it is not a networked version of the software because you get charged extra for that.  That employee usually doesn’t have the time to keep the accounts up to date because they are too busy doing other things.

By the time the employee prints the monthly reports, they are out of date.

What I love about cloud based accounting packages like Xero is that the data is up to date. Reports can be accessed by the small business owner via secure login from the internet or smart phone, from anywhere in the world and at anytime they please.

This gives you, the owner of your business, control because you know what your business is doing and what its financial health is. When you add that to the skills and advice of a qualified accountant and business advisor you are in a great business to really improve your business financial performance.

I love the dashboard in Xero. When you login you instantly see your business cash position, how much your customers owe you and how quickly you are getting paid, what you owe your suppliers and a snapshot of the key financial accounts for your business. This information is vital for improving your cash flow and profitability.

If your financial information is locked up in old-fashioned desktop accounting software I strongly suggest you consider the cloud alternative.