Are you using the spreadsheet as your financial accounting tool of choice? There’s nothing to say against that. Really: It’s reliable (kind of), cheap (relatively), and (once you got the hang of all the formulas and stuff) it’s easy to use. But trust me: in the age of cloud computing, there are much better options out there. Why? Read on!
Photo by Unsplash | Nick Karvounis
The Power of the Spreadsheet?
I get it: spreadsheet calculation is a powerful tool. You can use it for bookkeeping, time-sheets and even to manage your clients’ contacts. You can calculate whatever you want with one of those neat formulas. You can even use it to create sleek graphs and charts to impress investors and staff. So why ditch the good old spreadsheets for some hip new online accounting tool you don’t even know you can trust? Let me tell you why: Because you’ll save time, money – and you’ll gain total control over your business.
Timesheet Calculator
Granted, using the spreadsheet as a timesheet calculator has its merits, and nowadays you can even use it in the cloud. But wouldn’t it be great if you did not have to check your watch and enter the time each time you start (or stop) working? Cloud services like zistemo include a smart automated time tracker, which automatically logs your time. Just hit a button and you’re done. That sounds nice, you might say, but it really isn’t much of an effort to write down your own time, is it? You’re right, it isn’t. If you do it once or twice. But you have to think long-term here! You’re writing down your hours each and every day. Usually when you arrive for work, go out for lunch, return from lunch and leave in the evening.
Let’s say it takes you about 30 seconds to ‘track’ in and out of your spreadsheet. Now do me a favor and use one of your clever spreadsheet formulas to calculate the time you’ll be saving if the same task takes only 5 seconds. Say you track in and out 4 times a day, 5 days a week for 50 weeks, an automated time tracker will save you a total of 25’000 seconds. Which equals 6.94 hours. Not too bad, is it? But wait! That’s not all. Smart time tracking doesn’t stop there: quickly assign your tracked time to the task you’ll be working on. Which is automatically linked to the right project and the right client. One swiping click, and all tracked hours will be billed correctly. Now, that’s a real time-saver!
Accounting & Bookkeeping templates
Now, another big plus of spreadsheets are the accounting and bookkeeping templates you can create and adapt according to your own wishes. At least if you enjoy fiddling with numbers and mathematical formulas. If you don’t, well, you might be better off using an accounting alternative like zistemo, where absolutely no guru-skills are needed to be a good bookkeeper. Just enter your numbers and let zistemo do the rest, from invoicing to reporting and Business Intelligence. And if you do like fiddling with numbers, well, just repeat the exercise from above: calculate how much time you’re spending with your formulas versus how much time you need to simply enter your numbers and visualize the output within seconds. As for the flexibility: zistemo has been created for you. Our goal is to give you total control over your numbers. You can fiddle around as much as you want – but you don’t need to.
Smart Graph Maker
Another big plus of spreadsheets is the smart business graphs and charts – very handy and important for presentations and such. But what if you were greeted by a live chart showing tasks, projects and budgets of your whole business each time you logged into your spreadsheet? That would be great, wouldn’t it? Ha. That’s exactly what the zistemo Dashboard does for you. Each and every day, with live data collected from each team member. Totally flexible, of course. Should we do that calculation game again? No? You get the gist: smart cloud accounting saves you time. And time is money – as well as the most important resource of humans and businesses alike. Take care of it!
Kind regards,
zistemo
P.S. We’re not in any way affiliated to some spreadsheet software, and we do believe in the power of tables. All of the data in zistemo is exportable in .csv format. Just in case you need it.
