5 Tech Solutions to Boost Small Businesses Growth

One of the most time-consuming tasks for any business is handling finances. 

In the 2021 CFO indicator survey report, 49% of the surveyed financial officers saw that the ability to execute with accurate and timely financial data was the most significant gap in their respective companies.

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Time is a business resource. Fortunately, financial tasks that take up time can be automated using financial tools software.

Here's a list of ways to use financial tools to help you with small business financial management.

1. Reduce data loss with an accounting software

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Manual encoding of data is a tedious process and leads to possible errors. With accounting software, you have to enter information, and upon extraction, data extraction automatically follows.

As you input all data in the software, financial data will be accessible anywhere, whenever you wish. Depending on your software of choice, you may be able to access it via a web browser or mobile app. You won't have to search through piles of paper as your accounting software organizes and stores all transactions calculations and even tax returns. 

The best accounting software to have is one that can integrate with existing software. One of the top accounting solutions is Quickbooks, with over 4.5 million global users, based on Intuit Investor Day 2019. LiveFlow provides a Google Sheets Add-on that automates tedious manual entries from QuickBooks into Google Sheets while ensuring that your data is encrypted and not modified or shared externally. 

2. Monitor money flows efficiently with a financial dashboard

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Keep a tab of the overall financial health of your business by implementing a financial reporting dashboard. It's easier to make decisions if vital financial measurements are organized in one place with a clear visual representation. Creating a financial reporting dashboard is your stepping stone to automate your financial planning and analysis. 

According to an INC article, approximately 65% of the population are visual learners. A financial dashboard will make it easier to communicate financial data to the broader organization through data visualization.

You can create personalized financial dashboards or choose from the templates from the library of LiveFlow. You can add or remove metrics that you want to monitor, and your dashboard will be updated in real-time. Additionally, you can easily import external data sources like Shopify, Xero, and Quickbooks. 

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3. Open a business credit card

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If you haven't opened a business credit card yet, then it's high time for you to get one. Based on the Small Business Credit Survey 2021, 21% of businesses sought funding via business credit cards. Opening a business credit card can help you in terms of expansion, business borrowing, and innovating in the future as you build a good credit history and higher credit limits.

Apart from this, one common mistake of small business owners is mixing business with personal finances with the thought that the company will not grow that much. To avoid this self-limiting belief, opening a business credit card will help you establish financial boundaries. You can also import your bank data in LiveFlow to create budgets and reports.

4. Streamline your operations with a project management software

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Despite being a small business, the status of proposals, products, projects, and campaigns can get out of hand. It helps to equip your business with financial tools for business like project management software to better plan budget resources. 

Project management software allows you to track projects in real-time, which will enable you to see the current costing and the necessary budget adjustments to be made. Employees are also held accountable by delegating tasks and instant updates, which are standard features of the usual project management software available in the market.

Collaboration is the most emphasized value in project management software, and LiveFlow offers a way to communicate with the rest of the team with its Collaboration function. By keeping financials transparent, the workload will be smoother since all employees know the remaining budget. 

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5. Provide convenience to your customer with POS software

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Point-of-sale software allows you to complete leads and sales easily with inventory management features, in-chat payment, and a customer database. It will be easier for you to follow up on the status of payment and orders of your customers with one look.

You must align the features of your POS software to the nature of the business because this is where you meet customers. The common feature of existing POS software is a recording of sales made. 

Moving Towards Efficiency

With the use of different financial management tools for small businesses, it will be easier for you to manage your business's day-to-day and general finances. It is important to note that there is a difference between accounting vs finance, requiring you a separate tool for each. Fortunately, LiveFlow is a one-stop hub that will help you integrate both finances and accounting in one place.