Running a small business has many challenges. It’s not just all about finding the work either. It’s about managing everything so that you have time to actually do the work you have been hired to do.
If I take away all of my paid work, I spend my days; writing articles like this, scheduling our many, many projects to ensure that all of our time is spent wisely, heat mapping and altering our website so it works to the best of it’s ability, adjusting keywords, ensuring that we don’t overspend on Adwords, applying for the odd job here and there on oDesk & Elance, manning our Zopim live chat and worst of all, I get to do our books. Yes, most of that doesn’t sound too bad, and in all honesty, it isn’t really. It’s all part of gaining new business. The one thing that doesn’t get you new business is doing your accounts which makes it the worst task of all. And the HMRC don’t go out of their way to make things simple so if it wasn’t for Kashflow I don’t think I’d have the time for anything else!
Kashflow is a London based SAAS company. What does that mean? Well, that means that their software is held and ran from the cloud. But what does that mean? Well, if you don’t know what the cloud is, then you can access your accounting software from anywhere on pretty much any device. In a nutshell, they make accounting easier through a very user friendly interface, automation (which I love) and, it’s affordable. If you’re like me, with a micro business, then it’s right up your street. All you need to do is to input all your statements (hopefully automated in the near future) and then when tax times comes along, you click one button and your figures are all there ready to be submitted to the HMRC (don’t just submit these without double checking!) But what about invoicing I hear you ask? Well, you can quote and invoice directly from Kashflow. You can even design your invoices the way you want, which for a design company is very important. You can see our design below!
Let’s take you through a small example. I set up an invoice for my client called ‘Flooble’ I send this via Kashlow, the customer received the invoice and decides to pay us then there by clicking on the PayPal button within the PDF invoice. We are paid, and I mark the invoice as paid with the Paypal option within Kashflow. And comes tax time, it’s all there. Ready. It really is that simple. Everything in Kashflow is that simple.
What about PAYE? Well, they now have Kashflow Payroll which deals with all of that, it even integrates straight into your Kashflow account. PAYE is still scary to me as we’ve only just started with it. But, having Kashflow Payroll there to hold my hand is very comforting. A bit like walking into battle prepared for what is coming.
There is one drawback however. If you are like me and have customers from all over the globe, the Paypal automation within Kashflow doesn’t work if you are invoicing in anything but £. The conversion doesn’t match and adds figures that don’t make sense into your statements. You can still invoice in $ or € or whatever, just make sure you mark it as paid manually. This would be the 3rd cherry on the cake, but who doesn’t like cherries?
If you’d like to sign up to Kashflow, please click on . Fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat and all that
If you’d like to read my other reviews then please click on the links below