Disclaimer: Please note this article is not financial advice. The purpose of our blog is purely educational, so please consult a professional accountant or financial advisor before making any financial decision.
Unorganized financial data collection is like opening multiple tabs at once and having no idea where the music—we mean the money—flows.
Data collection requires a lot of detailed and ongoing work. There's so much to gather, from client and investor transactions to inventory, sales, and marketing expenses. It can be hard for a small business to collect these data due to insufficient sources and workforce.
However, that doesn't mean you can't escape from these problems. There's one simple but powerful solution: using Quickbooks small business dashboards!
What if you could simply access everything you need for your time-sensitive and long-term data collection in one place? Improve your small business financial management with this incredible Quickbooks feature!
The Essence of Software Dashboards in Small Business Bookkeeping and Accounting
Organization is key to successful financial management. It helps you avoid overlooking the smallest transactions that can cause huge financial problems. Furthermore, it keeps you updated on your company's financial status, allowing you to create feasible growth strategies.
One way to easily and quickly organize loads of financial data is through a software dashboard. It's a platform (usually found on the software's home page) allowing you to keep track of your company's health using lists, charts, statistics, and other visualizations.
Here's why your small business bookkeeping and accounting will greatly benefit from a software dashboard.
- It lets you customize the data to suit and meet your business KPIs.
- You can filter unnecessary data and only view and modify the information you need.
- View real-time data and apply the necessary changes or actions ASAP.
- Data is displayed in customizable and interactive visuals, making it readable and easier to navigate.
- Helps you develop quick and effective strategies for business growth.
- Allows for paperless management, which is more environment-friendly and easier to deal with.
- You can access it anywhere, anytime with cloud technology and mobile-friendly solutions.
- Increases productivity and saves you time, effort, and money in the long run.
- Provides you with brief, immediate, and comprehensive answers to any business-related inquiries you may have.
Quickbooks for Business: A Closer Look at Quickbooks Online's Dashboards
Dashboards might look like a mere summary of your software data, but it's more than that. It's a visually appealing shortcut to all of your business's financial data.
Do you want to make financial management easier and more efficient? Then, you should take full advantage of your software dashboard! What better way to start than learning how to use the Quickbooks dashboard, one of the most popular options for businesses?
Let's look closely at its features.
Get Things Done vs. Business Overview
Once you sign up for Quickbooks and transactions start coming in, you'll notice two tabs on your home dashboard.
The first one is Get Things Done. It's where you can quickly set up, review, and record various transactions and documents. Examples include creating invoices, recording bills, reviewing bank expenses, and setting up clients.
Meanwhile, the other one is called Business Overview. On this tab, you can view the bigger picture of your financial management: profitability, income, sales, bank account balances, and cash flow.
The dashboard will look different to each business or user since it is determined by the type of business and the user's access rights. So if you're the small business owner, you'll get a full view of everything, but certain members of your team will only see filtered versions of the documents and data.
Convenient Dashboard Buttons
Quickbooks also included three useful buttons on the upper right corner of the dashboard to make things easier for you. These are the Settings, Create, and Search buttons.
Settings allow you to modify, update, or remove your bank account data, existing account users, user access levels, and recurring transactions. You can also personalize what appears on your dashboard according to your needs.
Create lets you have new business transactions with collaborators and clients. Process and gather bills, timesheets, invoices, estimates, and other financial documents or metrics in one place!
On the other hand, Search allows you to access any quick information you need. Moreover, you can see your recent transactions, providing you with a quick insight into recent activities.
Tab Categories
The left side of your Homepage Dashboard also contains different tabs that can help filter your data further.
Choose any of the categories below to view, extract, and manage necessary data.
- Banking
- Expenses
- Sales
- Workers
- Projects
- Taxes
- Reports
- Accounting
You may also collaborate with your team members for specific categories, such as accounting. This is handy when you need to communicate with them immediately for any questions or troubleshooting needs.
Why Choose Quickbooks for Your Business?
While reading, you might wonder why you should choose Quickbooks to create your financial dashboard. After all, other small business accounting software might work better for you. So why do we recommend Quickbooks?
If we consider dashboards as a buying factor, Quickbooks is superior in the flexibility department. It has many customization options and can offer more when integrating it with any third-party application.
Plus, it's easy to use! You don't have to be a bookkeeping or accounting expert to learn the basic features of this software (although you will still benefit from professional help in other areas of financial management).
As a result, Quickbooks is highly capable of meeting the needs of almost any business out there, including yours!
6 Other Tips to Improve Business Data Management
You are already a few steps closer to better data management with a reliable tool on hand. Here are six more practices you should include when managing financial information.
1) Keep All Departments on the Same Page
Ensure that your team members understand how certain data and management tools work. This significantly prevents misinformation, production of irrelevant data, and employee theft. Otherwise, you'll put your business at a higher risk. So spend some time gathering your staff or involving them in a scheduled data audit.
Educate them on proper data management, usage, and protection to avoid costly mistakes. Your team should know what to produce, how much to produce, and how to achieve them. This way, they can better understand the importance of their roles and contribute positively.
2) Come Up With a Backup or Recovery Solution
Nobody is perfect, and neither are your tools. At some point, you might experience accidents like losing a huge amount of financial data. This can harm your business immensely, so create a backup or data recovery strategy ahead of time.
Export files or invest in cloud storage services; these are the fastest and most efficient ways to back up your data in bulk. They will also keep your data unchanged and accessible if you need to reinstall the software or change devices.
3) Prioritize Data Quality Over Quantity
In research and forecasting, compiling a history of your company's financial records is valuable. But you don't need to keep all of them. Some of your old data are no longer valid or relevant to your current statistics, so you should remove them.
Focusing on data quality over quantity will make your data management neater and less prone to inaccuracies. Consider setting up automation systems or training team members to perform regular cleaning checks. Quickbooks' data filtering and extraction features can also help you with this task.
4) Ensure Your Financial Data is Protected
Running a small business makes you more susceptible to data security issues like data breaches and cyber-attacks. This is because you still lack robust data security systems.
For this reason, you might want to consider investing in security solutions as early as possible. Start with enforcing GDPR, managing user access levels, and trusting the data to the right individuals to safeguard your information.
5) Pull a Refresher on Your Business Goals
It's always preferable to have an outline when constructing your data management system. This helps you visualize what you want to see on your dashboard and customize it like a breeze.
Goal-setting shouldn't be a one-time task. You should regularly check and realign goals with your current dashboard. Doing so allows you to ensure that what you're seeing is still accurate and useful to keep the business moving forward.
6) Establish a Scheduled Data Management Audit
Lastly, set a health audit schedule for your financial data. Depending on what you see fit, it can be daily, quarterly, or yearly checkups. Audits will help you ensure your data's accuracy, security, consistency, and quality.
There are different ways to do an audit. You can use the aid of Quickbooks' in-built features, hire an auditor, work with your bookkeeper or accountant, or build a system where employees can report any irregularities.
More Dashboards, Less Accounting Overboard
Software dashboards are incredibly useful in keeping your small business organized. It's a single, convenient source of truth for your continuously growing pile of business financial data. As a result, you can quickly review and evaluate your company's performance and build effective strategies.
Quickbooks is a wonderful choice if you're looking for a bookkeeping and accounting software with a solid dashboard feature. The homepage dashboard is easy to use and offers multiple customization options.
Unloop can help you make the most of business Quickbooks! Our bookkeeping services include integrating some of the world's best e-commerce software and platforms like Quickbooks Online. This integration makes way for more customization features, so you can create a dashboard that suits your business needs precisely.
We're confident in helping you maintain proper data management and up-to-date books. Plus, we can work with partner CPA firms to address tax compliance and other accounting concerns. So book a call now, and let's discuss more data management solutions!