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App of the Week – AutoEntry

With every task we do, we always ask the question “Is there a better way?” And with day to day bookkeeping – YES, there is! That’s why AutoEntry is our choice of The App of The Week.

AutoEntry simplifies your business’ bookkeeping. It eliminates manual data entry for accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. It automates the extraction and processing of bills, invoices, expenses and receipts and inputs them directly into your accounting solution.

It is perfect for small and medium businesses across all industries where volume of invoices and receipts is high. No more manual data entry of invoices, receipts, bills or statements. Simply email, scan and upload, or snap with your mobile app.

Features

  • Submit Documents – No more manually inputting invoices, receipts or invoices. AutoEntry extracts the data you need and publishes to your accountancy package.
  • Data Security – AutoEntry employs best practice security policies including encryption across the platform.
  • Full Line Item Capture – AutoEntry captures full line items, including the description, unit price and quantity for each line, with verified accuracy.
  • Item line settings – Apply rules to allow AutoEntry to ‘remember’ specific line item descriptions, or certain words within a description.
  • Purchase Order Matching – AutoEntry syncs captured invoices to matching open purchase orders.
  • Document Storage – Once AutoEntry has posted your data, it creates digital records, so users no longer needs to hang on to large quantities of paper documents, with client data stored securely in the cloud.
  • Integrate seamlessly – It integrates with your accounts software including Xero, QuickBooks Online, Kashflow, Sage 50, Sage One, Reckon, Freeagent and others.

 Additional Features

  • Data extracted & verified – Remove manual errors and rely on quickly searching secured stored, digital copies.
  • Smart analysis – Easily submit invoices, expenses and receipts as you get them, on the go.
  • Auto-publish – Seamless automatic publishing of verified data into your account software.

 How it works

  • Capture and submit documents – Forward emails from suppliers, snap receipts on the mobile app, or scan and upload to the website.
  • Accurate, automated data extraction – Data is processed and verifies before applying remembered Supplier, Tax Code and Category rules.
  • Seamless integrations – The add-ons ensure the seamless automatic publishing of verified data in your account software

Benefits

  • Save time – No more manually inputting invoices, receipts, expenses or statements. AutoEntry extracts the data you need and publishes to your accountancy package.
  • Paperless – With data stored securely in the cloud, there’s no need to store, file, print and copy paper documents anymore.
  • Integrations – Seamless automatic publishing of verified data into your accounting software.
  • Mobile app – Submit invoices, receipts and expenses on-the-go via the mobile app for iOS and Android devices.                                                                                                                       

Pricing

Powered by AI, AutoEntry is becoming increasingly sought after, due to its accuracy, speed and impressive range of in-built features. And, as well as being the smartest solution out there, with its flexible, pay-as-you-use pricing plans, AutoEntry also offers the best value for money. Users only pay for the documents they upload onto the platform, as needed month by month. Adding more companies or employees incurs no extra fees, meaning the whole team can make use of the solution without any fuss or extra expense. Advanced pricing plans available for firms with a large volume of documents.

By using AutoEntry, your businesses gain the following benefits:

  • Reduce the time and cost spent on manual data entry
  • Eliminate human error
  • Improve service turnaround times
  • Submit receipts and invoices on-the-go with its mobile app
  • Drive employee engagement
  • Store data more securely in the cloud

 AutoEntry + Xero

AutoEntry works by capturing and analyzing details from paper documents, before posting this information into a user’s Xero account. By leveraging the solution’s in-built intelligence, the data is entered into the correct fields every time, so there’s no fuss or room for error. 

 

Getting started

  1. Log into your AutoEntry account and go to ‘Company Setting’
  2. Click on the ‘Integrations’ tab and select Xero

Link your Xero with AutoEntry so that when you Publish your receipts or statements, they will directly be uploaded into Xero.

 With AutoEntry, you can say goodbye to piles of paperwork and hours spent typing up data, and get back to what really matters, serving their customers and growing their business. If you need help with setting up AutoEntry or integrating it with Xero we, at Cloudit Bookkeeping, will be happy to assist you.

The Credit Control Revolution

 

One of the most awkward and uncomfortable situations in business is having to remind clients about late payments on your invoices. Even harder is trying to respectfully request immediate payment without the conflict associated with adding late payment charges.

Credit control is another name for ‘getting the money you’re owed’. Not many businesses have a formal credit control process when they start out. However, each business should consider whether it is doing everything it can to ensure that its customers are paying on time. Furthermore, the recovery of business debt can be frustrating, time consuming and often unsuccessful. This then effects the business cash flow and the accountant asking questions about the recoverability of debts.

The introduction of cloud technology has made it possible to move forward in the management of credit control. Through up to date information and clever technology, the process has become much more streamlined, automated and productive. The features both within the accounting packages and also specific apps help businesses take back control of their debtors with positive results on their cash flow.

Easy Invoicing

If you use cloud based accounting software like Xero, it makes keeping your invoices up to date very easy. Through using your customized invoices and saved templates, issuing invoices has become a relatively quick and easy process. You can also invoice using your Xero mobile app keeping up to date when you are out and about!

You can simply email your invoices directly from Xero and the customer receives it immediately in their inbox. You will no longer have to push this task to end of the month or incur any postage costs.

In Xero, you can customize the look of your invoice by using invoice templates. You can edit the default templates or create new ones. You can also set up branding themes for your invoices so you can select the one relevant to the customer you are sending it to. For Instance, by using the DOCX custom templates you can create up to 15 branding themes which opens to a wide range of invoicing options.

Payment services

The more ways you give your customers to pay you, the more likely it is that they will pay you, and the less time you’ll spend chasing the payment. Add a payment service to your online invoice and your customer can pay it with just a few clicks.

Payment services in Xero allows you to accept the payments online. When the customer views the invoice, they can use the “Pay now” button to pay you securely using your payment service.

When the customer makes an online payment via their Xero invoice, the payment service used will take the payment and deposit it into your bank account.

You can set multiple payment modes giving your customer a choice and making it easy and accessible to them. Getting paid is easy with a range of payment services that seamlessly integrate with Xero, including PayPalStripe and GoCardless. You can find more payment providers in the Xero app marketplace.

Advanced reporting

Through regular invoicing you can keep your sales ledger up to date whilst having the ability to run an Aged debtors analysis at any time with ease. With the advanced reporting available in Xero you can quickly identify customers with outstanding invoices, and you can go through the details of the customer accounts and see where action is required.

The Aged receivables report in Xero allows you to select the “as at” date which will report the outstanding transactions at that specific date. This therefore will give you a clear overview of who owes the business and how much at any time.

Reminders

Instead of you spending hours chasing overdue payments, Xero can send automated invoice reminders for you. All you have to decide is when and how often the reminders are sent out, like setting a reminder to email customer when an invoice is 7 days overdue or 21 days overdue etc. You can also see whether your customer has seen an invoice and if it’s been paid.

Xero have created templates with suggested wording for the reminders, but you can change these if required and also can add other information such as details about preferred payment solutions and links to the invoice PDF. You need the adviser or standard user role to set up and turn on invoice reminders for your organization.

Once invoice reminders are turned on, Xero’s default reminders are sent at 7, 14 and 21 days after each invoice due date (overdue). You can also add a reminder that’s sent to your customers before an invoice is due. Specify the number of days before the due date that you’d like it sent.

Xero approved debt management apps

There are an increasing number of apps that link with Xero to automate and improve your credit control, letting you get paid faster and saving you time. The fact that you do not have to chase all your customers and you do not have to use the same templates for them all means that the business remains in your control at all time. Apps like Fluidly, Chaser, Debtor Daddy, Satago helps you to manage debt collection and ensures that you remain in full control of the process.

In addition to automatically sending your email chasers, some of these apps also offer a credit control CRM to automatically log all emails and replies. In addition to this, some apps can provide you data-driven insights into your credit control function, to help understand which customers are good payers, which are bad, and to help you better decide who to grant credit to.


The use of cloud software has revolutionized the Credit control management. Online invoicing, automated reminders and up to date ledgers which means that the whole debt collection process is much simpler, faster and less painful for business owners. The outcome speaks for themselves with cash flow improved and more time available to dedicate on growing and developing the business. If you need any help regarding the credit control management, talk to one of our trained bookkeepers and we will be happy to assist you.