Digitalisation in the accounting service

Details: Published: 02 August 2023

The fact is that digitization is among us and is like a Pandora's box that we will close again - there's no going back. Now, of course, all the data is in computer programs and systems. However, digitization is not just data storage, but data entry is also an important aspect.

Some more experienced accountants still remember the good old (physical) books - general ledgers, trial balances, customer cards, etc. Nowadays, this is, of course, a thing of the past, and instead of dealing with papers and books, most of the time is spent staring at computer screens. Even pencils have been replaced by keyboards and mice.

FACT:

Today, 99.9% of accounting documents are already created digitally, meaning - you, your clients, suppliers, various providers - everyone creates documents on the computer or digitally. Recently, the exchange of these files is also often entirely electronic.

However, the problem arises from the diversity of systems and their intended use. This issue then results in documents, business information, and data often being difficult to directly import into the accounting system.

Frequently, we already have a document in "digital form," but this is merely a representation of the document "on screen" (whether it's an exported PDF of a document or a scanned invoice). Since it's usually an original accounting document that represents a business event, it naturally needs to be recorded - meaning that data from such a document is retyped into an accounting program or ERP system. But is this really true "digitization"?

ANSWER:

Certainly not, with such a practice, we've only solved the fact that now we have the document in electronic form. While it may be easier to handle in certain ways (sending, storing, archiving), we haven't really reduced the work involved in processing it.

The solution isn't just converting documents onto a screen, but in actually receiving and processing the data entirely in digital form. This means that data from one business system can be directly converted-imported into another business system. After all, as mentioned earlier, all data is already in digital form.

Such data processing brings a tremendous leap in productivity that digitization can offer. Time savings - and let's be frank - even savings in nerves due to manual data entry - become evident in this way. The time lost due to retyping, verification (it's easy to make a mistake while typing), calculations... all of this can add up to quite a few hours.

With such digitization, you can actually save valuable time in an accounting service - and thus become more profitable. You can focus on tasks that are more suitable for your level of expertise.