Business is business, and personal matters are personal; the two are not the same. In no way, mix things up.

It is usually preferable to keep your personal and professional lives separate. Use it separately, whether it’s your time, energy, money, or anything else. Individual accounts for business and personal requirements are sometimes overlooked in the beginning. When you combine the two, you end up with an unbalanced situation.

For the sake of convenience, people like to keep a single bank account for both business and personal requirements. Small business owners, solopreneurs, and freelancers frequently ignore the need of having two accounts. Banking entails more than just money deposits and withdrawals. People that use a single account for different purposes find it difficult to deal with concerns such as tax filing, financial record generation, and so on.

Advantages of keeping accounts separate

You must not overlook the requirement for accounting support while balancing all of your responsibilities. A freelancer’s revenue might come from a variety of sources. People from other countries could be among the revenue sources. As a result, professional help is required to manage the accounts.

1. Professionalism

The mixing of bank accounts is incompatible with a professional approach to business. The way firms handle money reflects their trustworthiness.

2. Tax filing

Accountants frequently refer to tax filing season as ‘the craziest season.’ For this, account statements with revenue and expense details are required. So, would it be a good idea to provide information on your personal transactions as well? It also takes much time to identify and differentiate the business and personal transactions from the lengthy statements.

3. Efficient and easy bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is the one inevitable step that is important to any company’s present and future success. It must be error-free and simple to use. Separating business and personal accounts makes it easier to keep track of data and use them when required.

4. Proper analysis of profit and loss

Timely analysis of profit or loss is an unavoidable factor. Only the analysis of account statements can reveal profit or loss. A combined account statement containing personal and business transactions will make it difficult to evaluate outcomes efficiently and easily.

5. Avoids personal liabilities

Personal liabilities may be created by using a single account for both company and personal requirements. You may end up spending money for personal needs on business, and vice versa. As a result, the situation becomes more difficult, resulting in liabilities.

Maintaining separate accounts is the best way to prevent a slew of problems that can arise when trying to make profit with a single account for yourself and your company.

Data analytics is the process of analyzing the raw data in order to draw conclusions to make informed decisions. A set of data gives valuable information about the subject. It quantitatively and qualitatively informs you about what happened, why it happened, what should you do, when should you take the step and where should you apply and more, 

In a business system, getting accurate forecasting is indispensable to run successfully. Data analytics reveal trends and patterns that are crucial for taking the next big decision in the business.  

You might have already heard about an upsurge in the demand of data scientists nowadays. Although, accountants were already performing as data scientists by analyzing, calculating and predicting the financial outcomes. 

Data analytics in Accounting 

With big data driving the business world, accounting domain has started embracing technologies that help them extract valuable information from data sets. This incorporation of data analytics in bookkeeping has increased the efficiency, agility and demand for the accounting platforms. 

To get a clearer picture of the big data, let’s know about the 4 types of data analytics. 

Descriptive analysis 

Descriptive analysis defines the “what is” element of the data. It describes the information and classifies it accordingly. Though descriptive analysis is often misunderstood for data analytics itself, it is an important factor to identify the underlying problems. 

Diagnostic analytics 

In diagnostic analytics, your data is diagnosed deeply. Unlike descriptive analysis which describes the problem in a simple manner, the diagnostic analysis takes an in-depth analysis of the data. This intensive analysis helps to understand the underlying reasons behind certain issues or problems.  

Predictive analytics 

Predictive analysis is the process of predicting future outcomes based on historical data, machine learning, etc. With the help of advanced technologies, organizations are now able to reliably foresee insights.  

Prescriptive analytics

Prescriptive analytics urges you to take action along with predicting the future. This makes prescriptive analytics most significant among the types of data analytics. Rather than just monitoring the data, this method prescribes actionable insights which makes it more efficient.  

Importance of Data Analytics in Accounting Today 

Accounting has been from the ages a way of analyzing the data to make better decisions. You might have already heard about an upsurge in the demand for data scientists nowadays. It is the result of the rapid increase in the volume of data, the importance of big data in business, and more. 

Change of consumer behaviors, buying methods, internet usage, digital shift, etc. Although accountants were already performing as data scientists by analyzing, calculating, and predicting the financial outcomes, the age has come where they have to seek more specialized way of doing so. 

Adopting the mentioned types of data analytics to analyze your accounting data can certainly change the way you gather insights from the data. With tougher business scenarios, it’s high time that businesses start using accounting platforms that embrace advanced technologies like blockchain, AI, IoT, machine learning to make better business decisions and to perform easier & efficient accounting. 

While technology has disrupted most of the industries with its easy and effortless processing, accounting and financing industry is still reluctant to adopt futuristic innovations. Though with the advent of advanced technology happening around, we can foresee some real paradigm shifts that will revolutionize the face of accounting in the near future.  

Cloud Accounting 

As Cloud accounting is already in effect in the past few years, a significant amount of users have been conveniently adopting it. It has proved its efficiency and easy accessibility with time. Though most of the accounting platforms offer traditional on-premise services that possess confidential data storage systems, the flexilibity and real-time work flows of cloud systems is a godsend to accountants. With this they are able to save a great amount of time and effort.  

According to a study of Flexi, ‘Companies using cloud accounting has 5 times more clients than companies without it’. The great efficiency of cloud computing translates into higher business performance.  

Blockchain Technology enabled Accounting 

Blockchain has evolved into a disruptive technology leaving other record-keeping technologies in the dust. Initially designed for the mining of digital currency, blockchain technology was later applied to several other potential domains like banking, investment, voting, and more. And now, it’s bringing a paradigm shift in the face of accounting with its reliable features.    

According to Blythe Masters, “The blockchain is the financial challenge of our time. It is going to change the way that our financial world operates”. 

Simply put, blockchain and accounting is a perfect mix to bring effective financial operations. Now being in the incubation period, unleashing the full potential of blockchain can revamp the accounting management in the upcoming years. 

The world has lots of false impressions regarding many professions, especially jobs that seem incomprehensible to the public. A prime example of this is accounting. Many people including business owners have misconceptions on financial matters. It is important to know the actual truth behind the stereotyped beliefs so that you avoid serious consequences in the future. Here, we are throwing some light upon those accounting myths and facts.

Myth 1: My business is small, I don’t need an Accounting Software.

Accounting software is necessary for even small businesses to stay on top of their finances. It makes cash handling easier and keeps business intact. These digital solutions cater specifically to your business needs. Accounting software speeds up the data entry process, that is with less time and effort you get efficient financial results of your company. It eliminates manual errors and improves accuracy. All these benefits your company to make better decisions and forecasting.  

Myth 2: Accounting is only important during tax season. 

Tax season is an important and busy period for all businesses and accountants. Some companies make a huge mistake by making their accounts active only during this tax season. Rather, it is important to keep track of your books throughout the year. This helps data entry and tax filing much easier. Staying on top of your finances all through the year ensures that your business performance is intact.  

Myth 3: It is not affordable to own accounting software. 

This varies according to the different accounting software you go for. There are many accounting software that are affordable to your business in the market. There are accounting platforms that even give free packages. Certain online accounting systems provide different plans from which a user can choose a suitable one that complies with their business needs. This allows the user to customize financing according to their business niche and pay only for what he uses.  

I

t’s not unusual that business owners get busy with several management operations. One among them is the bookkeeping process of the company. It can get you caught up for days and months. This is why companies have started adopting different accounting systems to run their business hassle-free.

Today, businesses have a higher scope for improvement through several ways. With better and enhanced technology of accounting software, every establishment is finding roads to their financial destination. You cannot deny the fantastic ways by which these accounting systems improve your business sustainably. Let’s look at some of them –

8. Financial Data Security 

A company’s most confidential information is the financial data. You have to make sure that the financial information is highly secured, or it can create a huge data loss in your company. Data security planning is important and accounting software ensures that. With end to end cloud security or protected firewalls, accounting systems safeguard your financial information strongly. Unless you are not granted rights to enter into the system, you cannot see the data. 

10. Determine Business Profit 

The ultimate purpose of running most of the business, whether standalone or in partnership, is to determine the profit of the firm. Without systematically computing the business revenue and expenses, it is difficult to evaluate the profit earned by the business. A business may or may not be profitable initially but measuring and streamlining it throughout the course of time is important.  

All successful businesses need an organized way of managing books. And anybody who has been into it knows that it’s not an easy task. That’s why we have picked some really easy, effective, and free accounting software ideal for your business. A perfect free accounting software delivers free bookkeeping services with no compromise in quality and features.

We have sorted out such 10 free accounting software that promises unparalleled accounting services for every business ranging from startups to large entities.  

1. SimpleAccounts

SimpleAccounts is the one-stop solution for every accounting need. It serves small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and large organizations to get successful. By bringing a disruptive innovation of Blockchain Accounting like never, SimpleAccounts gives a breezy outlook to every business finances out there. From customer invoicing to getting business reports, SimpleAccounts is the perfect antidote to your accounting headache. 

2. Brightbook

Brightbook is the perfect bookkeeping solution for small business owners, freelancers, and contractors. It’s like all the best bits all rolled into one; create and send professional looking invoices in any currency, track your bills, and spend more time doing what you love. Brightbook is changing the way people feel about accounting. It’s for people, not eggheads. Brightbook makes bookkeeping an easier, less time-consuming, and more enjoyable process. And because it’s online you can use it anytime, wherever you are. 

3. Manager

Manager is the most comprehensive free accounting software. It has all the features you’d expect from an accounting package. Manager is free accounting software for small business available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The database format is universal across all operating systems which means an accounting file created on Windows can be easily transferred to Mac OS X or Linux if the need arises. 

4. SlickPie

SlickPie is designed to fit modern small businesses needs by doing all the heavy lifting work to deliver the most delightful expense management experience. Everything you need for your entire business accounting is here. From straightforward invoices to detailed reports, SlickPie is all you need to keep your business finances always healthy. MagicBot by SlickPie is an automated receipt data entry tool that enables businesses to streamline their expenses by automatically pulling information from receipts and converting it into digital data. 

5. Wave

Wave’s easy-to-use accounting software can connect your bank accounts, sync your expenses, balance your books, and get you ready for tax time. It enables to take control of your finances with the best accounting software for small businesses. Track everything and connect to other Wave products such as payroll, payments, and invoicing. Everything is automated and in one perfect package like unlimited income and expense tracking, adding unlimited partners, collaborators or accountants, fully functional double entry system and more. 

6. Zipbooks

Simple, beautiful, and powerful, ZipBooks gives you the tools and intelligence to take your business to the next level. With Zipbooks, you don’t have to have an accounting degree to keep immaculate records for your business. ZipBooks provides you with a smart way to track all your transactions, keep on top of what you owe and who owes you, and figure out how much your business is actually making. 

7. Akaunting

Akaunting is an online accounting software that has all the tools you need to manage your money, from invoicing to expense tracking to accounting. Thanks to its modular structure, Akaunting provides an awesome App Store for users and developers. Akaunting is an Open Source project with contributors from all over the world. Akaunting is hosted on GitHub and open for everyone to contribute. Akaunting gives free access to every user.That’s right, completely Free. No setup fees. No strings attached. No hidden charges. 

8. Sunrise 

Sunrise provides solutions that help freelancers, solopreneurs and small business owners grow and succeed. The free software helps business owners manage invoices and track the health of the business. Most business owners don’t want to dive into bookkeeping which is why, for a monthly fee, Sunrise provides professional bookkeepers to handle it. Sunrise is a Lendio company. Lendio is focused on fueling the American dream. It is a free online service that helps business owners find the right small business loans within minutes. 

9. Sleekbill 

This free invoice software does everything a small business needs, from calculating to formatting, auto-completing and emailing invoices. It provides all required billing features making it just perfect for small businesses and freelancers. Sleek Bill can help you design wonderful documents that can make your business stand out. The professional invoice designs use all elements and formatting settings to help you attain a great result. 

10. GNUCash

GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. 

Check out the best accounting software for your business.

VATor value-added tax is a consumption tax levied on goods and services at each stage of its sale. Initiating from the production stage to the final consumer of the product/service, each stage of the value addition chain is liable for tax payment.  

VAT is meant for paying a tax at every stage of sale, but the ones who pay the tax can reduce it by receiving the credit at the time of output. This way, VAT prevents the issue of double taxation that existed in the previous sales tax laws. 

VAT was introduced as a relief to the conventional sales tax system, where only the retailer collected the tax from the final buyer. The main aim behind the introduction of VAT was to eliminate the presence of double taxation and the cascading effect from the then existing sales tax structure. 

VAT in UAE 

Value Added Tax was introduced in the UAE on 1 January 2018. The VAT helps the UAE government to rely less on oil and hydrocarbons as a source of income. Moreover, it acts as an alternative of the source of revenue for UAE to provide high-quality public services. More than Dh12 billion is estimated to be generated as additional revenue after the first year of tax implementation. The standard rate of VAT is 5 per cent.  

How does it work?

• A business is liable to register for VAT if it reports annual revenues of over AED 375,000.
•  It is optional for companies whose revenues fall between AED 187,500 and AED 375,000 per annum.
• When a business pays the tax to the government collected from the customer, it receives a refund of the tax paid to its suppliers from the government.
• Certain designated zones of Free zones in the country as defined by the UAE cabinet will be exempted from the payment of tax.

There are 3 categories under VAT in UAE: 

• 5% Value Added Tax
• Zero-rated supplies
• Exempt supplies

School education and public higher education have a zero-rated VAT, though educational supplies are applicable for VAT. Certain non-preventive healthcare services are liable for tax payment. It is to be noted that domestic passenger transportation is exempted from VAT. Food, beverages, telecommunications and electronic services are accountable for VAT. 

Kubernetes vs Docker is now popular among the IT domain, specifically in cloud computing. But do you know what it is really? It is important to learn about it before getting into cloud computing as a professional or for your business.  

Want to know the benefits of cloud computing? Click on Cloud Accounting Benefits to learn more about cloud computing and businesses suitable to choose it.  

The term Kubernetes vs Docker itself is deceitful as it gives off a sense of rivalry between two competitors. Rather, one of them was adapted from the other to work symbiotically for the proper management of your application.  

We cannot go further on Kubernetes and Docker without shedding some light upon containers. 

Containers are software that allows applications to work reliably when moved from one computing environment to another. This allows the software programs to be deployed consistently and infallibly during displacement from the development stage to production. The shift could be anything from the host environment to the test environment, from desktop to a cloud service, etc.   

Container orchestration is the management of individual containers that aids in automated deployment, scaling, and networking of the same to run in multiple environments.  

Docker

Docker is the most popular container engine, open-sourced for developers and administrators to manage, shift, and run applications. It allows the developed application to run the same in any environment without any distortion even when decoupled.   

Docker provided a standard way for packaging and shipping. But there came a need for the coordination, health checking, and authentication of the application. The auto-scaling and replication of the components were required. Also, a solution was demanded when there is an error and a way to restart it. This is when orchestrating containers came to rescue, and Kubernetes is an alternative for it.  

Features of Docker:  

• Quick application deployment.  
• Consistency in every stage of the environment.  
• Constant development and integration  
• Effective resource utilization  

Kubernetes

While Docker is a containerization technology, Kubernetes or K8s is open-source container orchestration. It was initially developed by Google but now open-sourced for further developments. Kubernetes is the ideal container system to work applications in the cloud. Kubernetes can run and schedule applications. Basically, Kubernetes starts the work where Docker stops.   

However, Docker.Inc has developed its own container orchestration platform Docker SWARM, equivalent to Kubernetes. Though, the establishment of Kubernetes has allowed it to be widely used rather than the Docker SWARM.  

Features of Kubernetes:  

• Auto-scaling of applications  
• Instant updates  
• Monitoring and health checking  
• Authentication of software  
• Provides completely container-centric development environment   

In toto, Docker and Kubernetes have been a godsend to developers for the integrated working of systems.   

For every business, from startups to conglomerates, invoicing is the centerpiece of their proper functioning. Let’s breakdown this term to its simpler form.  

An invoice is nothing but a bill or document that the seller sends the buyer notifying the payment terms. Payment terms may include the transaction list, payment amount and date, sometimes due amount to be paid too.  

Invoice is an itemized bill for goods sold or services provided, containing individual prices, the total charge, and the terms. 
– Dictionary.com

Invoicing is a significant part of business as it is the element that enables quick payment of the services or products provided by them.   

Invoicing is important for both the sender and receiver. For the sender it’s a provision for recording statements, tracking, and speeding up the payment. The recipient on the other hand gets the detailed itemized record. There are different invoices created by business for its various purposes.  

Standard invoice – Most common type issued by businesses, industries.

Credit invoice – Issued for noticing a client about an offer, discount.

Debit invoice – Shows the balance amount to be paid by the client.

Pro-forma invoice – Invoice issued before completing the work stating the estimate.

Interim invoice – Intermittent invoices sent to the client during a large project.

Creating and sending invoices can be done in a matter of seconds. It also allows you to manage your business accounting in a breeze.