Online Financial Management Software a Must for SMBs

We spoke to Brad Paterson, Vice President & Managing Director, Intuit – Asia Pacific about the growth of mobile in the Indian SMBs and what are the financial solutions that can ease the paper work.

Business and Technology Challenges for Indian SMBs

A critical pain point we hear from small businesses revolves around financial management particularly saving time and improving cash flow. “A business owner wears multiple hats – managing operations, customers and employees. In the midst of all this, they tend to overlook a very important component, which are their finances,” said Brad Paterson, Vice President & Managing Director, Intuit – Asia Pacific.

Financial management or good financial health is crucial for any small business’ success. Global statistics show that 1 out of 3 small businesses fail in the first three years due to poor financial management. “It’s a no-brainer that understanding your finances, improving your cash flow and maximizing time to spend on your customers is essential for the long-term survival of any business. Deeper knowledge about your finances and how to take smart business decisions as a result is also equally important,” added Paterson.

A majority of business owners are experts on the service or product they build their business on; they are not financial experts. According to a recent Intuit survey, only 40 per cent of small business owners consider themselves financially literate, and two-thirds wish they knew more about their finances.

Good financial management is not just knowing how much money you have in the bank. They need to understand their finances beyond balancing a checkbook and knowing what their finances indicate about the health and wellbeing of their business.

Partnering with a financial expert, and integrating a financial management tool that best suits the business needs are two key decisions organizations should make early on. Not only should they look to integrate a financial management solution during the early stages of their company, they also need to ensure that it can grow and adapt to the changing needs of their company.

Technology Implemented to Deal with the Challenges

QuickBooks, an online financial management software developed by Intuit for small businesses simplifies financial management for the business. The software has over 1.4 million paid users using it in 112 countries. With QuickBooks, small businesses can get their accounting done with speed and accuracy, get important insights that are relevant and engaging and most importantly improve cash flow by getting paid faster and keep more money in their pocket.

It also allows them to better collaborate with their accountants. Accountant’s love using QuickBooks because it lets them save time by ensuring client data is always up-to-date. Access client’s books anytime, anywhere and quickly move between client books.  Accountants using QuickBooks can grow their practice and build their expertise through best-in-class training, support and certification programs.

“With QuickBooks we want to fuel small business success, because when they thrive, we all do. QuickBooks was launched in India in 2012,” said Paterson. The solution is a cloud based, easy-to-use, and exclusively designed to help small businesses spend less time bookkeeping and more time growing their business.

“We have 104 published apps customized for the Indian market. For example, we partnered with a solution provider, Paybooks, to offer a comprehensive payroll platform on QuickBooks. Indian developers can publish their apps for local market or global markets (US, UK, CA, AU). We are working with some Indian developers who are developing apps for the US market,” said Paterson.

Open & Integrated Platform for SMBs

Our open platform allows third-party applications to integrate seamlessly, creating an environment that helps fuel small business growth through innovation,” said Paterson.

“With our deep understanding of small business needs and over 1.4 million customers worldwide, we can help developers accelerate performance and provide them with an opportunity to make money,” added Paterson. There is huge opportunity for small businesses to use apps to run their business, which is attracting developers to create such apps aimed at small businesses. More and more apps are being created to cater specific tasks, such as payments, and invoicing.

Mobile is an area of huge opportunity for us in India. There are around 956 million mobile phones users in the country of which 168 million are smartphone users. “Many of our customers are accessing QuickBooks on smartphones and our focus will be to continue enhancing the mobile experience and add more features for the SMBs,” said Paterson.