For the modern bookkeeper, time is money. The more tasks that can be automated, without compromising the accurate tracking and managing of clients’ financial data, the better. When managing the financial transactions of an individual or a business, keeping track of financial transactions is an essential step for budgeting, tax filing, and overall financial planning.
One of the revolutionary automation that has greatly simplified this process is automatic bank statement fetching. This feature allows bookkeepers to securely and automatically retrieve their client’s bank statements directly from their institution on a monthly, daily, or weekly basis. Below are some of the main benefits of implementing this automation into your workflow:
Time Efficient Bookkeeping
Manually logging into various banking platforms, downloading bank statements, and reconciling the transactions one by one, can quickly become very time-consuming. Especially when you have a multitude of clients with different bank accounts in different banks to worry about. Setting up automatic bank fetching for each of these clients’ bank statements through a financial application such as LedgerDocs will allow you to have real-time updates of transactions and balances. Client bank statements will be pulled automatically on a scheduled day of the month saving you several hours each month.
Reduced Data Entry Errors
Human errors are inevitable, especially when manually transcribing financial data from one platform to another. Automatic bank statement fetching significantly reduces the chances of data entry errors and allows you to provide your clients with more accurate and reliable records. Transporting data from one platform to another is as simple as exporting the fetched transactions from LedgerDocs and importing them directly into another platform such as Quickbooks Online.
Improved Security
Managing the private credentials for your client’s bank accounts can be very nerve-wracking for bookkeepers. Mishandling this sensitive data could have serious consequences, both legally and financially for the client and the bookkeeper. Using financial software to fetch bank statements allows you to connect clients’ bank accounts directly to LedgerDocs, without the risk of sharing bank credentials, ensuring a safer and smoother process for everyone involved. Once connected, the system seamlessly fetches future statements and grants access to the latest or historical statements whenever needed. The setup is simple and secure. All the bookkeeper needs to do is send the link with the two-step bank fetching instructions to their clients. With this, your client should be able to safely connect their bank account to LedgerDocs. Once the account is connected they can share a mobile number with their client so they can add it as a trusted device on their online banking website, this way the bookkeeper can receive one-time security codes for the Two Step Authentication when fetching statements. Once this setup is completed the bookkeeper should be able to fetch bank statements from this account whenever needed without the intervention of the client or direct access to their bank account.
Accurate Tax Filing
Tax season is a busy and stressful time for bookkeepers and business owners. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with the amount of information that needs to be collected and make mistakes when it comes to reporting income or expenses. But ensuring accurate reporting is essential to avoid potential audits and penalties. Automatic bank statement fetching simplifies the tax filing process by providing organized and categorized transaction data. This ensures that the bookkeeper can gain access to the information they need to correctly file taxes and saves both them and the client time manually searching for and compiling this information. This allows them to generate financial reports required for tax returns faster and more accurately, saving both themselves and their clients time and any potential headaches during tax season.
About 60% of employees surveyed estimate that they spend almost a full workday a week on repetitive tasks that could be automated. Bookkeepers are no strangers to this concept. With LedgerDocs, fetching bank data becomes effortless and time-saving, ensuring accurate and real-time financial records – allowing bookkeepers to spend more of their time on higher-value tasks. Contact us at 855-998-3041 to confirm compatibility with your financial institution. Simplify your financial management and focus on what matters most.
