Business owners understand how important it is to be wholly informed about business finances that are generally reviewed from financial statements. When it comes to the professional implementation of accounting practices, a CPA is always preferred by businesses. However, as a business owner, you might want to get more control over your business’s financial situation to make better decisions.

Whether you want to learn how to understand the information presented by different statements or looking for ways to prepare them on your own, there are several tools you can use for the same. The tools described below in this article will help you generate financial statements essentially required by investors, creditors, lenders, etc.

Best Tools for Your Business Financial Statements:

Some of the best accounting software powered by cloud technology can help you manage your accounts from wherever you are. Cloud technology also adds a greater security level to your sensitive data as it is stored in the cloud, such as remote servers. Thus, to access to read your financial data, all you need is a cloud accounting system and an internet connection.

Many business owners often remain on the go, meetings with teams, pitching products or services to potential clients, supplier visits, etc. amid all this, taking time for accounting can become difficult, but cloud accounting software can help you tap into real-time information of your business finances. Therefore, let’s discuss some of the most popular accounting software that also offer online/cloud versions.

  1. Microsoft Excel

You might have used Microsoft Excel that comes with Microsoft Office is one of the widely used spreadsheet programs across the world. You can use spreadsheets to organize financial data (numerical information) in columns and rows, for instance, profit and loss reports.

Microsoft Excel offers several templates to help you make customised reports and statements. As your basic accounting requirements increase, you can download more templates from Microsoft’s website. Many businesses also use the cloud version of Excel with a subscription pack called – Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365); some corporations also use Google Sheets due to its free subscription.

Using Excel to generate statements can be helpful; however, you will need to learn basic accounting concepts, for example, differentiating short- and long-term assets and calculating depreciation in both income and cash flow statements using different methods.

Apart from that, while entering transactions into sheets and making reports, you need to ensure you make no mistakes because Excel doesn’t detect incorrect entries. However, you can manually reconcile receipts and sheets, which usually becomes tedious and complicated, even for accountants. This is why it is least preferred in the current era when more-reliable, automation-powered accounting software are available in the market.

These days, most companies prefer to use dynamic accounting systems that can ensure automatic error detection, compliance with GAAP norms, and provide a highly secure storage platform and backup for financial data.

  1. NetSuite

NetSuite ERP is one of the best tools for financial management. It is a comprehensive accounting software offering end-to-end solutions that include vendor management, customer relationship management, marketing & sales analyses, and an essential financial statement generator.

You can take multiple advantages of this software; however, the best thing about it is that it automatically generates reports for you. You don’t need to spend hours learning how to prepare statements.

You can provide access to selective employees (for instance, your accounting staff) who can access the data from computers at the office or smartphones while sitting at home. Besides its super exciting offerings, it may cost you a lot. Its price range goes from $8,000 to $15,000 per year for a business that has not more than ten employees.

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  1. Adaptive Planning

Adaptive Planning helps you create all the essentially required financial reports such as income statement and cash flow statement and variance and budgeting tools that can assist managers in interpreting financials.

This performance management software (offered by Adaptive Planning – an award-winning company) can be used by businesses, corporations, and even enterprises. It offers amazing and easy-to-use tools for financial forecasting, budgeting, and benchmarking. Besides, it provides intuitive analytics and data mining tools that management can utilize to make swift and sound financial decisions.

  1. Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct – a highly customizable software that offers a complete range of accounting features, and you can use it for your current most significant requirement – generating financial reports. One thing that makes it businesses’ favorite software for accounting is that it guarantees compliance with the latest accounting standards applied in the U.S and across the world, providing reports specifically suitable for your business type or industry.

Sage Intacct’s customizable accounting software allows you to perform flexible, real-time analysis and generate valuable reports in no time. We can say that it is a one-size-fits-all solution for almost all business owners. However, you may need to initially spend some time finding the best use of the software as per your business needs.

  1. Sage Intelligence

If you are unaware of the Report Designer for Sage Intelligence, you might be missing a lot. Sage Intelligence is replacing the Financial Reporter that comes with earlier versions of Sage. The new version offers a lot more functionality. In fact, The Report Designer can be used as an add-on for Excel.

It is a great tool you can use to easily and quickly design financial reports, primarily if you use the Layout Generator. Adding to that, the drag and drop features allow you to choose and enter data on your reports, taking significantly less time. You may also find it easy to send reports through email; besides, it allows consolidated financial reports for multiple data sets.

  1. Intuit’s QuickBooks Accounting Software

QuickBooks has been the market-dominant for small business accounting applications; most liked for its user-friendly interface and a wide variety of features it offers. Intuit knows how to cater to its audience; both the desktop and online versions provide a 30-day free trial. There are three editions of the desktop version, which are as follows – Pro, Premier, and Enterprise. The premier version offers industry-specific reports, business planning, and financial forecasting tools. The enterprise edition is designed to be used for up to 30 users. Not only this, QuickBooks Online has iOS and Android applications to support accounting on smartphones.

All its versions allow you to track income/expenses, perform invoicing, and link to financial institutions online. The Essentials versions allow access to up to 3 users. The Plus versions offer inventory tracking, purchase orders management, and access to up to 5 users; you can add payroll for an additional cost. You might want to enjoy several third-party add-on applications that work compatibly with QuickBooks.

Both the desktop and online versions of QuickBooks are great; however, with the world going digital day-by-day, most businesses prefer to use online versions due to the connectivity level they experience with their financials round-the-clock. Online versions that we can say powered by cloud technology are more secure because all the data is stored in a secure cloud server that is protected via multiple authentication methods.

Conclusion

When it comes to handling business finances and generating statements, you need to ensure that you choose the most suitable tools as per your business type and requirements. You might have spent several hours finding tools best for you; however, with this article, you may be easily select the one that will work best for you.

These software tools will allow you to generate different statements and bring the best out of them, especially when it comes to making better business decisions and financial reporting. At Accounting To Taxes, we have a complete team of accounting professionals offering quality  financial reporting services to businesses worldwide. We have been delivering top-notch financial accounting and tax preparation services since 2008 and gained hundreds of happily satisfied clients. Learn more about our services; call us at +1 646 688 2821 Or email at info@accountingtotaxes.com. Call us today to get a free trial.