Winning business with online
accounting Faiz and Co in Golders Green, London has transformed the
way in which it produces client accounts. It is successfully
pioneering a new system developed by IRIS Software which utilises
Internet technology to provide clients with a highly individual
service.
IRIS iCash is a new accounting system that allows small
businesses to keep their books online. Partner, Behzad Faiz-Mahdavi
explains "Because we adapt the accounting system to suit the
client's individual trade, it is like having their own in-house
bookkeeper."
Approximately thirty of the firm's clients are already using
IRIS iCash and the aim is to build up to a hundred by the end of
the year. The list of industries is wide-ranging and includes:
architects, recruitment agencies, a restaurant, property
developers, kitchen consultants, dentists and estate agents. As the
system uses the cash accounting method, it is in theory most suited
to businesses with a turnover of less than £600,000 per annum but
again Behzad is breaking new ground.
Larger clients are also using iCash by providing quarterly
lists of debtors and creditors. The immediacy of providing the
information online allows Behzad and his team to make the necessary
manual adjustments to the VAT account.
One of Faiz & Co's clients, Morland Estate Agency in
Golders Green, has been using the system for six months. Sarah
Williams is responsible for the production of monthly accounts and
finds the system very easy to use. She said "Previously, we used
handwritten books. This new online system is so much quicker: it
now takes me approximately an hour a month to produce the accounts.
I like the fact that I can access a lot of information and produce
useful reports; for example how much we are spending and where the
money goes."
The extended coverage of
Broadband is helping to make online accounting a realistic option
for practices and small businesses throughout the UK. Firms
offering online accounting look set to win new business from those
clients who value flexibility and prefer a more individual
approach.
