The 5 Accounting Apps All Business Travellers Must Have

Being a business traveller plus an accounting supervisor is not easy, because you travel the world running a business wearing multiple hats of a Business Analytic, a Spokesman, a Brand Manager OR a Financial authority.

If you’re looking forward to business travelling with a strong intent of generating new leads, closing deals on time, managing finances, strengthening client relationships and just making your life in travelling a little easier with budgeting & GST reports (including expenses and balance sheets) in place, a good accounting app is definitely what you need.

Also read, ten tips every New Business Traveller can benefit from

What are the challenges?

Accounting & reports aren’t fun all the time. Manually scanning the invoices & receipts, then entering every transaction from the past month is stressful. Also, you do not have sufficient time by the end of the month. Plus, dependency on a third party might weigh you down more and more on the expenses side lowering the percentage of business solutions.

Hence being the solo business traveller AND administrator for all of the above you might end up with the quarterly profit of mere peanuts.

After years of analysis on the FAQs and pain-points which multi-industry businessmen encounter while manually keying in expenses and redesigning their sales numbers, it was time for me to suggest better accounting apps for Business travellers.

What are the possibilities for better Business Travel Management?

As far as I see the future, it doesn’t have to be that hard with a proper accounting app in place. With the latest cloud-based technology and strong integration platforms available accounting is easier than ever where you can manage your end to end business diagrams, Order management (E-commerce and woo commerce), sales and purchase channels, Bank reconciliations, online payments including GST and much much more while travelling.

There are functionalities which enable you to take photos of receipts with your phone, track your profit and loss reports at a click, send payment reminders after dashboard screening, manage balance sheets and budgeting & compare your sales and expenses amidst days and nights of your business trip.

To help you navigate the endless sea of business apps, I’ve compiled a list of apps and broken them down by category. They’re basically the various tools your business needs to perfect the expense & balance sheet reporting process and give your team more time to do their jobs.

But before that, based on the needs of a business traveller I have narrowed the criteria for the best accounting apps based on the below pointers:

• Focussing on business travellers it should have the capability to be used anytime & anywhere.
• Highly secured bank reconciliation feature to manage finances and reports at multiple destinations while travelling.
• Dashboard diagrams, Sales graphs, Multiple Bank Connects and notifications on payment reminders should have a good user interface.
• Generate important reports at a click for both Sales and Expenses without any connectivity issues.
• Make it genuinely easier for business owners to scan GST reports while travelling
• Have a trusted BRAND value that differentiates the application from competitors in the market.

What is the list of recommended accounting apps for business travellers?

CLEAR TAX

Need awareness on GST while you travel? Opt for Clear Tax. They are basically a financial-technology platform providing solutions for Income Tax filing, GST & Mutual Fund Investments. ClearTax’s tax products are designed majorly for tax-related work as they are the emerging platform to make Income Tax filing more understandable for the average Indian.

Compatible features for a business traveller:

• The flexibility of billing online and offline
• User interface and reporting at a click
• Income Tax filing management
• GST software that you evaluate has the intelligence to contact users of all possible events coming.
• Makes sure that no deadline is missed and your business remains up and running!

QUICKBOOKS

If you want to do a quick check on all the business and finance reports (anytime & anywhere) then go for new age QUICKBOOKS! (Also known as naye zamaane ka naya online accounting software).

This accounting software helps you run your business and provides a screening of your company’s overall financial health. You can use QuickBooks to track your business sales and expenses, view financial statements, such as profit and loss reports.

Compatible features for a business traveller:

• Reconcile multiple business bank accounts
• Accepts all credit cards, PayPal and Square and uploads data from these sources seamlessly (Including Multicurrency feature available)
• Simplifies doing all your business taxes, as it tracks expenses and lets you upload photos of receipts from your phone.
• You can access QuickBooks App on your mobile; iPhone, iPad, Android phone or Android tablet.
• You can also do employee and vendor management, track unpaid or overdue invoices, maximize your tax deductions and more.

PROFIT BOOKS

Profitbooks is an online accounting software mainly developed for small businesses. It is also based on cloud technology. The data can be securely placed in a cloud and can be accessed anywhere.

Compatible features for a business traveller:

• Inventory management while you travel.
• Stock adjustments at a click.
• Deal in multiple currencies even when you are travelling internationally.
• Simplified sales and purchase workflow.
• Online payment management.
• Multi Integrations with some best apps like Amazon, Woo-commerce, Shopify, Quickbooks and Tally.

TALLY ERP9

Tally is an accounting software platform designed for small and medium businesses, independent contractors and sole proprietors with the multi-company feature. It is totally compatible with Mac and PCs, and its mobile invoicing and receipt scanning app is available on iOS and Android devices.

Compatible features for a business traveller:

• Multi-company management while travelling
• Track sales and expenses
• Scan receipts and generate accounting reports
• Vast User Interface to manage almost anything in accounting
• Lifetime and Long term subscription plans

Note: Tally has both Online and Offline versions (Offline more reliable) with strong multiuser and multi-company features. So depending on the frequency of your business travel you can choose any of them beforehand.

ZOHOBOOKS

Works on an integrated platform, with an end to end accounting and GST compliance. Manages entire receivables to payables and Inventory to banking with specific timesheets and reports

Compatible features for a business traveller:

• Multitasking for business travellers
• Job costing at a click
• Easy cloud-based technology
• Easy User interface
• Payment gateway Interface available while you travel

All these accounting apps are very simple and easy to use and are specially designed for business travellers (giving access to all essential accounting management, inventory, sales and purchase features). So go ahead & streamline your financial operations to NOT stop accounting even when you are travelling to a remote place.

Planning for an upcoming Business trip? Read about Packing for a Business trip, Tips & Hacks!