In this article, Shafraz - Accountant at Zyla Accountants shares his favourite software and technology utilised by Zyla Accountants. If you don’t keep up with the latest tech, you’ll be left behind.

This statement is true in most industries and accountancy is no exception. Fortunately, I’m lucky enough to work for a practice that embraces new technology and is always on the lookout for the latest tools to improve efficiency and productivity.

Here are some of my favourite tools, some of which I’ve been using for a long time, others were new to me when I joined Zyla:

Xero

I don’t believe there is a better accounting software for small businesses, others may be cheaper, but they’re definitely not as easy to use. There are a lot of features of Xero that make my life easier, top of my list has to be ‘Find and Recode’. It’s such a powerful tool to enable correction of multiple transactions en-masse.

Typically, I use this where a client has used the wrong VAT type (eg ‘No VAT’ rather than ‘Zero Rated’). A few simple clicks and all of those transactions are coded as they should be. In most accounting software this is something that would have to be done one transaction at a time, which is incredibly labour intensive. I don’t expect a client to know the complexities of VAT and why the particular VAT type is important, that’s my job! So this feature has saved me and the team countless hours.

Google Sheets

Like most accountants, I love Excel. Such a great tool for analysing data, creating working papers and pulling together management reports. But I was always frustrated when it came to collaborating with colleagues or clients on a spreadsheet. Enter Google Sheets, they’re always live so multiple people can have the sheet open at the same time. They’re easy to share with whoever needs to have access. And the fact they’re always live means you’ll never have those heart in mouth moments where your computer crashes and you hadn’t clicked save for several hours.
We share various sheets with our clients for collaboration, either by email or in my next pick - Slack.

Slack

Our entire team works remotely, so being able to communicate effectively is really important. Sure, we have regular meetings and catch ups, but for queries that pop up throughout the day Slack is our go-to. We have internal channels where we can discuss any client specific queries and we also have channels with many of our clients where they can communicate directly with our whole team. If someone is out of office it’s no problem because another member of the team will respond to any query.

We have a policy to respond to any query within 24 hours and Slack makes this really simple to achieve. No missed emails or ‘oops, you landed in my junk folder’. The entire chat history is saved on each channel for everyone to see. Transparent, collaborative and efficient. What’s not to like?

And my favourite part of Slack is being able to add custom emoji reactions, such as this one, called ‘zylaquickturnaround’, which we use when a colleague has completed a task quickly. This one gets a lot of use 😉

Apron

Data capturing from receipts and invoices using optical character recognition (OCR) has been around for ages now. The technology is near flawless, saving many hours of data entry for bookkeepers.

One of the most famous names in the industry is Dext (which is great, and works really well), but we use Apron. Apron handles the data capturing just as efficiently as Dext, so we can do as much as what we can do with Dext and more in this platform.

One example where Apron is ahead of Dext for UAE is that it captures the tax rates more effectively from invoices compared to Dext. Apron even captures the supplier's bank details from the invoice and ensures a match using open banking.

All this saved time means our team can focus on providing accurate financial data and more tailored advice.

Contact Zyla Accountants today to arrange a meeting about your business.

Software and tools we love at Zyla Accounants

Xero

Google Sheets

Slack

Apron

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