Online bookkeeping
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most companies these days use bookkeeping software to maintain their books. The books are updated regularly by the company's own staff or outsourced to a bookkeeper. The recent willingness by individuals and companies to put their confidential documents and data online using secure applications has seen a resurgence in online bookkeeping.
Using this method the company scans their business documents and uploads them to a secure location or into an online bookkeeping application on a regular basis. This allows the bookkeeper to work remotely with these documents to update the books.
Companies have adopted online bookkeeping in several ways. Mobile employees scan and send in their receipts and bills while on the road to get paid sooner. Organizations with multiple offices can centralize their accounting department, and have the documents sent to this location online. Still others are finding it more efficient and cost effective to outsource their bookkeeping to countries with lower bookkeeping costs.
Several companies are offering web-based software to cater to this market. Large companies like Net Suites, and Quickbooks offer comprehensive functionality. Smaller startups like Freshbooks, and Suitesonline.com offer niche services like invoicing, and automatic document indexing and transaction entry.
Online bookkeeping represents a new chapter in the field of accounting. While it is seeing adoption by large companies and hi-tech startups, there is some concern about the security of the documents on the internet, and also outsourcing of bookkeeping jobs.
