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Bookkeeping is a necessary but often dreaded task for small business owners. Managing invoices, tracking expenses, and reconciling bank statements can be extremely time consuming, especially if everything is done manually. However, technology now exists to automate much of the bookkeeping process, saving small businesses significant time and money. One such solution is automated bank statement converters like Rocket Statements.
The Burden of Manual Bookkeeping
Most small business owners are already strapped for time. In addition to developing products/services, marketing, managing operations and employees, and providing customer service, owners also have to maintain the financial records. This includes tasks like:
- Tracking sales invoices and payments owed
- Logging every business expense
- Reconciling bank and credit card statements
- Producing financial statements and reports
- For those without an accounting background, these duties can be confusing, prone to errors, and very tedious. Yet good financial data is critical for managing cash flow, planning budgets, getting financing, and making sound business decisions.
Outsourcing to an accountant or bookkeeper provides relief but adds costs. Business owners surveyed by Wells Fargo estimated spending an average of 80-100 hours per year on routine financial paperwork. That’s extremely valuable time lost for core business priorities.
How Automated Tools Help
Fortunately, automated solutions can minimize the accounting workload for small business owners. One of the most useful is an automated bank statement converter and parser like Rocket Statements. This streamlines one of the most laborious accounting tasks – reconciling monthly bank and credit card statements.
Key benefits include:
Save Hours Reconciling Statements
Automated converters extract transactions and key data from PDF bank statements and output them into digital formats like CSV, Excel, QuickBooks. This eliminates hours of manual data entry, reducing reconciliation to minutes.
Avoid Data Entry Errors
Manual entry of statement data is highly prone to typos and other errors. Automated conversion produces reliable, accurate transaction data for cleaner books.
Easy Data Access & Reporting
Machine-readable CSV/Excel outputs allow easy import into accounting systems, analysis with spreadsheets/BI tools, and report generation. No more squinting at tiny PDF statements.
Enhanced Accountability & Security
System logs provide accountability trails for who accessed and converted statements. Sensitive financial data also remains encrypted end-to-end.
Simple & Affordable Solution
With no hardware or software to install, automated statement converters offer an incredibly simple, low-cost solution to streamline reconciliation. No more new systems to learn.
Side Benefits Beyond Reconciliation
While converters solve the immediate pain of transaction data entry, small businesses also leverage the outputs in helpful ways such as:
- Digital records retention for tax compliance. CSV/Excel statements facilitate easy search and retrieval.
- Detailed tracking of expense trends and cash flow in spreadsheets.
- Understanding spending patterns to better control costs. Identify unnecessary or excessive expenses.
- Surface hidden benefits and tax deductions not utilized. Catch underused vendor discounts, mileage deductions, etc.
- Export cleaned-up transactions into small business accounting systems like QuickBooks Online and Xero automatically.
Get Started Quickly
Implementing an automated bank statement conversion tool is fast and easy. Solutions like Rocket Statements work directly within your web browser, so there is no IT involvement. Simply navigate to the website, upload a PDF statement file, configure some basic extraction settings, and convert to Excel, CSV or other digital formats in seconds. Bulk conversion of multiple statements is also possible to supercharge your efficiency.
Best of all, online bank statement converters integrate seamlessly into any existing small business workflows. Use them as-needed or as part of regular monthly close processes. Either way, converting tedious PDFs into accessible Excel or CSV extracts provides immense time savings and peace of mind. Say goodbye to wasting hours wasted on bank reconciliation. Instead apply those valuable hours toward growing your small business in meaningful ways.
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