Quickbooks & Dext Prepare-Keep your Accounting Paperwork Digitally

I’ve been in the bookkeeping business a long time and am overjoyed when I find tools that make my job easier. With the use of new technology – gone are the days of MYOB and hours of data entry. Remember those piles of gas receipts? Boxes and bags of paperwork to be organized and posted? Let’s face it most of us are selling our time when we own a business. And for a lot of business owners, time spent tallying receipts is the last thing they want to do.

Technology is rapidly changing in the way we do business. For example, it seems like yesterday, clients would show up with shoeboxes of paperwork to be organized into some sort of paper filing system then posted into a bookkeeping data file.

These days bookkeeping & accounting are in the 21st century with cloud-based real-time accounting systems. This means that your information is accessible almost instantly online, and you can access it anywhere you are if you have an internet connection. Practically all online-based accounting systems also come with a phone or tablet app for uploading information on the go. Or doing business right where you are. Think of QuickBooks Online, Xero, Wave.

Dext Prepare-what it can do for you

Let me introduce you to one of my favourites – Dext Prepare (formally ReceiptBank). This application will fetch all your paperwork, including bank statements and bring it to one place, which you can see on a single digital dashboard. Once your accounting software connection is set up, Dext will automatically pull all your receipts and invoices and show you a digital copy. Additionally, if you download their phone app, you can take pictures of receipts and invoices on the go that will upload to your Dext account for editing.

The editing process is quite simple. When you connect Dext Prepare to your online accounting software (like QBO), it will integrate with your chart of accounts. Click on the receipt, choose the account for the charge, allocate the taxes, and publish the receipt. Dext will then push the receipt to your accounting software. Your accounting software can now have a digital image attached to the transaction.

You can set up a login for your bookkeeper or accountant to have access to Dext Prepare and complete these tasks for you. If set up correctly, posting your receipts will take a third of the time, and the bonus is you have a built-in audit trail.

Using the phone app, you can snap a picture of your gas receipt on the fly, which will automatically upload to your Dext account through the cloud. No more looking for that lost receipt behind your car seat. It makes the perfect tool for business owners and subcontractors who are on the road all day. Upload your receipts and invoices via mobile app, email or auto invoice-fetch.

The beauty of Dext Prepare is that it extracts every line of data on a receipt or invoice and calculates the tax. Once you code it and publish it, the data syncs with your accounting software’s bank feed. It also gets to know your suppliers after time and will automatically code itself to the proper account. From there, you match your transactions in the bank feed of your accounting software. To audit-proof your bookkeeping, you can also attach the receipt to the transaction in your books as proof of purchase. This puts all your business purchase information in one place. Your data is also stored for seven years using bank-level encryption.

Dext integrates with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, and Workflow Max and starts at $25 a month for 5 users and 300 monthly documents. Other plans are the business plan for 20 users at $50 per month and the premium for up to 30 users at $75 per month.

Other receipt fetching software on the market like HubDoc and Ledgerdoc claim to do some of the same things. However, Dext Prepare is the software I use the most for my clients.

As a bookkeeping and technology geek, I plan on exploring other receipt categorizing software and let you know what I think. It never hurts to learn more about everything. I hope this information brought some new information to your business bookkeeping.

Be kind

Babs

At KineticBooks & Tax Solutions, we help transform businesses by implementing paperless, cloud-based accounting systems to create more time for business owners to do what they love. We provide automated accounting tools that work efficiently for peace of mind and security. Being hands-on, we are also there to educate you on using those tools with a dedicated bookkeeping pro for support. 

Contact Us today for a free consultation.