Hello accounting experts - thanks for all the great advice thus far.
My question is about data entry on mobile phones for accounting. The scenario i'm thinking of is small business or tax users keeping receipts recorded using their iphone.
Do you see this becoming more prevalent in the industry? Do you have apps that you like to suggest? Are there features that you regard as valuable to the bookkeeper?
I am asking because i am a contract software developer in the mobile field and have just worked on an iphone app related to this ( cashsentry.mobi/?u1=b ). I do use it myself, but obviously not being an accountant by profession I am curious to hear what the experts consider important features and caveats.
my experience of clients data input is mixed and I always go back to the records of prime entry when preparing client books.
An app on the phone for me might make the client feel that they are contributing but the reality is that I would ignore everything that they do and process it myself which ensures that there is in fact a paper trail for everything in the accounts.
Bookkeepers and accountants work in different ways though so maybe this may be of some use to others.
Good luck with your new venture,
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
An app on the phone for me might make the client feel that they are contributing but the reality is that I would ignore everything that they do and process it myself which ensures that there is in fact a paper trail for everything in the accounts.
But the idea here will be to do away with the receipts once they are captured. Not in favour of this at all (and that's nowt to do with me not throwing out any paperwork EVER).
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Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
Peasie you never through out anything, who knows they could make a TV programme on you and your hoarding, and recycling!
We haven't had a recycling tip from you for a long time, maybe its time to start another thread on that one?
I would be worried about inputting stuff on my phone as its bad enough texting with my new blackberry Z10, the delete button is next to the send button and the first few texts that I sent where only half done due to this, so what I would have said in one text ended up in 2 or 3 texts. So inputting data into my phone for bookkeeping, no thanks. Maybe I am just old fashioned but I prefer the paper.
Peasie you never through out anything, who knows they could make a TV programme on you and your hoarding, and recycling!
We haven't had a recycling tip from you for a long time, maybe its time to start another thread on that one?
I would be worried about inputting stuff on my phone as its bad enough texting with my new blackberry Z10, the delete button is next to the send button and the first few texts that I sent where only half done due to this, so what I would have said in one text ended up in 2 or 3 texts. So inputting data into my phone for bookkeeping, no thanks. Maybe I am just old fashioned but I prefer the paper.
I don't want to take this too far off topic but one part of it is related - kind of.
A tv program on me wouldn't be any use. All these programs you see on tv with hoarders they have junk lying about everywhere and you can't move. While I am a hoarder I like things to be organised. An OCD hoarder. I was recently in an accountants office and he did the same recycling trick as me - if you print something out and it is no longer needed you write notes on the blank reverse. These pages were scattered on the top of a filing cabinet. The organiser in me was tempted to clip them together with a foldback clip. Or punch holes in them and keep them together with a metal clip.
Because the camera on phones are so good these days I'm forever photographing pages and notes. And scrap notes before they are torn up and thrown out are photographed first. And with Photostream they are instantly available on my computer. So even when I throw the physical scrap of paper there is still a digital scrap left behind.
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Never buy black socks from a normal shop. They shaft you every time.
I am getting so far concerns about accuracy of data entry as one obstacle - small key boards and client mistakes are two sources of error. Also a recommendation that source documents are not necessarily to be thrown away after being photographed (balanced with the need to avoid hoarding too many documents).
Many of my source documents are till slips - it helps me to get a snap shot of them, because the ink fades pretty quickly, but other source documents like checks might not fade so easily.
