Fortune Business Insights report suggests that even during the pandemic, the accounting software market is expected to show continued growth, rising from $347.31 million in 2020 to $416.23 million by 2024. The most common reasons for this remarkable growth are the software’s never-ending requirements throughout the business operations. A business needs to track and manage its budgets and use accounting software to maintain optimal financial performance.
The study’s conclusion is clear; the market is as competitive as ever for accounting software vendors. If you want to make the most of this opportunity or want to develop custom accounting software for your business, you are at the right place.
In the next few minutes, we will discuss how to build accounting software, taking inspiration from one of the leading software in the category- FreshBooks.
Table of Contents
What is Accounting Software?
Accounting software is a computer program that helps financial experts record and reports an organization’s financial transactions. It can integrate financial data from multiple locations, forming a dashboard that gives a 360-degree view of the company’s economic performance.
What is FreshBooks, and Why Should You Take Inspiration from It?
Freshbook is a cloud-based accounting and invoicing software specially tailored for small businesses. The software offers a clear view of businesses’ financial standing, including profit/ loss summary, tax audits, and more, with comprehensive dashboards and reports. Here are some of the features offered by Freshbooks that make it a leading choice of over 2,878 companies across the globe.
- Available across smartphones (iOS and Android) and desktops.
- Multiple report types, including profit and loss, expenses, sales tax summary, and collected payments, can be sorted/ filtered, saved, exported, and printed.
- The tax module offers automatic calculation with accuracy.
- Ability to design and personalize signature invoices
- Expense supervision to search and identify business expenses
- Save and organize your project communications in one place, as well as establish project due dates
- Business data and perceptions by learning the costs of governing the business and predicting profits
- Multi-currency system
- Accurate forecasts considering various parameters
- Numerous payment forms help companies to accept payments via various mediums.
- Ability to perform immediate bank reconciliation by regulating transactions after importing them, developing changes and additions, and confirming quick matching suggestions.
Why Should a Company Use Accounting Software?
Accounting software can benefit businesses in multiple ways. Here’re some of the most significant areas where you can leverage accounting software.
1. Information Retrieval is Much Easier:
Accounting software offers a convenient way to retrieve all your financial information under one screen. You can easily link data from multiple sources and find it handy when needed. Not only does it boost information accessibility, but it also makes sure accuracy in the financial data.
2. 360-Degree View of Revenue and Financial Statements:
Not everyone has time to go through long written pieces of financial information or through the excels containing the data. The digital age demands easily available information with interactive charts and graphs that give you a better idea of incoming and outgoing transactions while delivering forecasts when required to control data flow. An accounting system is capable of the same.
3. Quicker Response with Automation:
Manual errors are inevitable with multiple company departments involved. Regarding accounting and finances, even the smallest mistake can be disastrous. Therefore, you need a strong accounting system that automates the processes. Not only does it save you the cost of big errors, but it also helps you reduce waiting time with advanced technology working in the background.
4. Control Costs:
Web-based accounting systems allow businesses to improve the efficiency of the accounting processes as well as make them more systematic.
What are the Key Features of an Accounting Software?
Deciding the features of your accounting software is vital. It helps you build the right software that your target market needs, or in the case of custom software like your users need. Not only this, it keeps your accounting software development process streamlined and guided, thus ensuring optimal results.
To help you, we have highlighted some of the most important features you must consider.
1. Estimates
Templates allowing customers to fill in and send estimates easily are recommended. Multiple currencies should also be available. Bigger systems should also include various languages.
2. Expenses
Expense tracking (bank payments, out-of-pocket costs, and receipt reconciliation) is fundamental. Taking pictures of receipts and uploading them is also a common feature of accounting solutions. Some platforms give employees the ability to record their expenses and request reimbursements.
3. Projects
A handy to-do list helps you track multiple projects in the accounting process and streamline the arenas, including hourly rate, billed/ unbilled hours, task status, and more.
4. Accounting
Of course, the most important feature. It includes the aspects such as profit/ loss statements, balance sheets, and aged debtor and creditor analyses.
5. Taxes
This feature accounts for tax options according to various geographies.
6. Reporting and Analytics
One of the key features of accounting software is the ability to automatically create a financial report and look at analytics using various built-in templates. There should be an option to generate custom reports. This makes financial management processes clearer and employees more productive. Accounting software should also be equipped with tools to analyze and visualize data.
7. Customization
Each client has specific demands for an accounting application. Some need only limited functionality or implement their accounting functionality in their network. Due to this, there has to be an ability to switch off certain SaaS application services. A SaaS software subscription fee should depend on which services a client uses.
Also Read: Custom SaaS Development Guide
8. Invoice Processing
Accounting software makes it easier for organizations to monitor and process invoices. It also helps streamline the information necessary for tracking and creating invoices, such as client details, tasks, etc.
9. Payroll Management
Custom payroll management helps make salary payments easier and hassle-free. It enables teams to process payrolls easily, calculate salaries, bonuses, etc., and even automate the payment process.
10. Reporting and Analytics
Accounting software can help automate the reporting process and allows accountants to create monthly/ quarterly/ annual reports in a few clicks. It helps deliver the right insights and statistics for decision-makers.
11. Extensible
Accounting software should be extensible with existing enterprise solutions like ERP, CRM, etc.
Accounting Software Development Process
You know why you need the custom accounting software; you know the features you want, so the next thing is how exactly you can build custom software.
The answer is clear: Hire an Accounting Software Development Company.
Why? Because they offer you the widest range of software development services with a well-thought-out process. Here are the general steps of the process they follow:
1. Idea and Research
Knowing that you want to build accounting software is not enough. It would be best to clearly define your goals and roadmap on how your software will align with those. Ensure the company you hire offers enterprise business consulting services to help you finetune your idea. You need to ensure proper market research, which will help you ensure you are delivering the software that your target audience needs. This will not only help you bring out the best in the software but also help you earn the best revenue.
2. Design
A design is the most important part of a software solution. No matter how many hours of coding goes behind the scenes, if the software doesn’t deliver the right look and feel, it’ll be difficult for you to rule the market and turn potential customers into paying clients. Make sure you are in close contact with your UI/ UX team and offer them constructive feedback from a user’s point of view from time to time.
3. Software Development
You’ve got the blueprints ready. It’s now the time to implement the underlying functionality, which is the most time-consuming part of the entire process. In this stage, software development teams will build your product and apply the logic. Simultaneously, a QA and testing team will work with your development team to ensure the software comes out efficiently. However, once you receive the build, run a few tests and ensure they have delivered the promised functionality.
A dedicated project manager will be by your side to help you with smooth accounting software development.
4. Deployment & Upgrades
And finally, it’s time for you to launch the software. However, launching doesn’t end the project. You need to keep upgrading it according to your user’s requirements and ensure it continues offering the experience required. Keep checking for user feedback and make changes. This way, you will reach the top of the financial software market in a few years.
Read More: Financial Software Development: A Complete Guide for Businesses
How Much Does Accounting Software Development Cost?
Accounting software development cost depends on multiple factors:
a. The number of features included and their complexity
b. The number of users supported, scalability, and extensibility
c. Time is taken for accounting software development
d. Security parameters deployed
e. Underlying tech stack
f. The strength of the team involved
An accurate estimate differs from one software development company to another and is available only when you share your complete requirements.
Are You Ready for Custom Accounting Software Development?
So are we at Matellio.
Our engineers and quality experts have a knack for building financial and accounting software at a cost-effective price, with the best services encompassing iOS application development, web development, Android app development, and more. You can choose from the available engagement models and make the best of your development budget. To book a free consultation right away, click here.
