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15 Best Productivity Tools for Accountants
Striving in accounting demands thorough research and profound data analysis. This can be achieved through the use of productivity tools specially designed for accounting professionals. Accountants are responsible for generating and presenting accurate financial data to management. So productivity tools play a vital role when it comes to completing accounting tasks thoroughly.
There are countless productivity tools in the market, so choosing the best suitable tools becomes challenging. If you are looking for the best productivity tool, you are in the perfect place. We reviewed and chose the best productivity tools for accountants and mentioned them in this blog.
1. Toggl (Time management)
Toggl is an effective time-tracking tool best suited for accountants. Toggl makes it simple to keep track of your daily tasks, ongoing projects, and billable hours. It has an intuitive interface that helps you track time spent on different tasks, gaining valuable insights into time allocation and productivity.
Key features:
Project time tracking: Toggl allows you to track time for specific projects or clients so you can bill the clients accurately and evaluate project profitability appropriately.
Reporting and analytics: Accounting professionals can manage their time more effectively and efficiently with the use of detailed data and analytics that provide them with a clear picture of how they are spending their time.
2. Todoist (Task Management)
Todoist is arguably the best task management tool for accountants. It helps accountants properly prioritize tasks on their to-do lists and organize them with simple yet productive features.
Key features:
Task categorization: You can effortlessly categorize tasks based on clients, projects, or deadlines, ensuring an organized approach to task management.
Due date reminder: You can leverage the auto reminders for upcoming deadlines and never miss any critical tasks or deliverables.
3. Evernote (Note-taking)
Evernote is a digital note-taking tool that enables you to write down and arrange all of your ideas, recollections, and thoughts. It is a very helpful tool for accounting professionals.
With Evernote, you can create notes in a number of different formats, including text, photos, audio, and video. You can find your notes effortlessly using tags, even in large data. It is a flexible tool that can be used for many different things, including taking notes in meetings or at work, managing research, organizing projects, and more.
Key features:
Note organizing: Accounting professionals can store and organize accounting notes. It facilitates rapid and effective information retrieval.
Cross-platform sync: You can access notes from desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones with seamless device sync, enhancing productivity.
4. Xenett (Review and close management)
Xenett is a cloud-based review and close management platform that helps accountants in being more efficient and scalable. It is an all-encompassing tool that enables accountants to alter the way they review, close, report, onboard, collaborate, and interact with clients. If you're an accountant looking for a way to streamline your firm, Xenett is the perfect option to go for.
Key feature:
Reviewing books: You can detect and fix real-time errors in your books using Xenett. As accountants, you can create custom review points, save a lot of time and streamline reviewing the books.
Close: You can create substeps or review checkpoints for closing, add review notes, attach supportive workpapers(With or without a link), track time for each task, resolve reconciliation discrepancies, and segregate reviewer and preparer roles in the close feature of Xenett.
Communication and collaboration:
5. Slack
Slack is a well-known communication tool that allows accounting teams to collaborate in real-time and communicate effectively. It eliminates the need for endless emails and fosters smooth communication.
Key features:
File sharing: You can easily share documents, such as financial reports and other documents, and collaboration with your team effortlessly.
Instant messaging: Accountants can communicate with clients and team members easily, promoting swift decisions and improved teamwork.
6. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based platform for collaboration that incorporates collaborative capabilities, including chat, video conferencing, and file sharing, into one workspace. It is quite a convenient tool that may make account teams more effective and productive.
Key features:
Chat: Microsoft Teams helps remote account teams to communicate with one another in real-time. This tool is useful for swiftly exchanging information regarding tasks, projects, or inquiries.
Video conferencing: Account teams can use video conferencing for virtual meetings with colleagues or clients.
7. Asana (Project management)
Asana is a web-based project management tool that helps in task management, monitoring, and collaboration. It's a well-liked tool for companies of all sizes.
Key feature:
Project planning: Asana helps you ensure a disciplined approach to project management. Accountants can create project schedules and allocate duties to team members.
Progress tracking: It helps you track the progress of the tasks and stay updated on task completion and project management enabling you to timely interventions when needed.
Document management:
8. Google Drive
Google Drive helps you save files online and access them from any location. It is a widely used tool that offers a variety of features that make it a great asset for both businesses and individuals.
Key features:
Real-time collaboration: In google drive, multiple users can work on the same document simultaneously, promoting effective teamwork.
File sharing permissions: Accounting professionals can control file sharing permissions to restrict access to confidential financial documents and reports, protecting data security.
9. Dropbox business
Dropbox Business is a cloud-based storage platform created with all sizes of businesses in mind. It has several features that accountants may find useful, such as:
Key features:
File recovery: Dropbox Business provides file version history and recovery, protecting against unintentional changes or deletions and preserving data integrity.
File syncing: With the help of Dropbox Business, accountants can easily access various devices, such as financial documents, work papers, reports, etc., on the go.
10. LastPass (Password management)
LastPass is a password management tool that helps you create, save, and autofill strong and secure passwords for all of your online accounts. It has features like two-factor authentication (2FA), secure notes, and dark web monitoring.
Key features:
Secure password storage: By securely storing account passwords, LastPass lowers the risk of illegal access to your online accounts.
Password sharing: You can securely provide access to vital information to team members by using a password manager.
11.NordVPN (Security)
NordVPN is a virtual private network(VPN) service that encrypts the internet traffic and routes it through a separate server location. It gives the impression that you are browsing the internet from the VPN server's location rather than from your present location.
Key features:
Secure remote access: Accountants can work remotely with confidence, knowing that their private data and communications are shielded from potential online threats.
12. Expensify (Expense tracking)
Expensify is a cloud-based expense management tool that helps firms track, manage, and reimburse employee expenses. Businesses of all sizes use it, from small startups to major corporations.
Key features:
SmartScan technology: The SmartScan technology of Expensify extracts data from receipts using OCR technology, minimizing human data entry and improving accuracy.
Policy Enforcement: Expensify enables accountants to establish expense policies, which streamlines the approval process and ensures compliance with business guidelines.
13. Microsoft Excel (Financial analysis)
Microsoft Excel is a versatile tool that is widely used for a vast range of activities, including financial analysis. There are many features of Excel that can assist accountants with financial analysis. Have a look at two of the most substantial ones from the accounting perspective.
Key features:
Data analysis: These functions are useful for calculating financial ratios, creating pivot tables, and producing charts and graphs. This enables accountants to examine vast amounts of data fast and easily.
What-if analysis: Accountants can perform What-if analysis in Excel. With the help of these features, accountants can examine how changes in one variable affect other variables. It can be a very useful tool for making financial decisions. Also, accountants can use it to determine how a change in the sales forecast will influence the company's net profitability.
14. Tableau (Data visualization)
Tableau is a data visualization and business intelligence tool that helps accountants in seeing and understanding data. It is a powerful tool for creating interactive dashboards, charts, and graphs that can assist businesses in making better decisions.
Key features:
Drag-and-drop interface: Tableau's drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create interactive dashboards and infographics. This is an excellent tool for accountants who may be unfamiliar with data visualization software.
Ability to connect to a wide range of data resources: Tableau has the ability to connect to a wide range of data sources, including spreadsheets, databases, and cloud-based data warehouses. This enables accountants to access and evaluate data from various sources, which is useful for financial reporting and analysis.
15. Power BI (Business intelligence)
Microsoft Power BI is a powerful business intelligence (BI) tool. It helps businesses in collecting, analyzing, and visualizing data from many sources. Power BI allows you to create interactive dashboards and reports that you can share with others.
Key features:
Detecting anomalies: You can detect anomalies in your financial and sales data using Power BI. This can help accountants and accounting firm owners identify possible complications, such as a sudden decline in sales. This data can then be utilized to investigate the issue and take appropriate action.
Making predictions: Power BI can be used to forecast future sales. This data can help accountants and accounting firm owners prepare for the future and make better resource allocation decisions. Power BI can also be used to forecast which products will be popular in the coming quarter.
The bottom line:
Top-notch Accounting demands efficiency, accuracy, and seamless communication. These 15 productivity tools, tailored to the demands of accountants, offer numerous benefits, allowing accountants to simplify difficult accounting processes, enhance accuracy, and make well-informed decisions that promote business success.
