Help! I'm spending all my time logging into online banking! How to deal with accounts payable as an SME ...

[King James]

I run a media and event company turning over £2m and have quite a few invoices coming in each week. We do not have anyone full time in finance - have a fractional FD to do the budget and an outsourced accountants doing the books. I'm finding as the owner a huge amount of my time is now spent logging into my online banking, setting up new payees and paying invoices - it's incredibly time consuming. However, I'm not clear on HOW to get this off my plate ... Options as far as I can see are ...

1. Hire a part time accounts payable clerk and give them access to an online banking account (maybe a separate one ? any ideas who is good for multiple users like that?)

2. Some kind of tech solution - we are using Dext and Teleroo to do the payroll ...

3. Use another solution e.g. give a VA/ PA access to an online account.

4. Change accountant to one that can take on paying invoices.

5. Other?

Wonder if anyone had suggestions?

 

[NHAccountant]

Hi

The first thing that springs to mind is what credit terms do you have with your suppliers?

Most businesses would process a payment run on regular basis (weekly, fortnightly, monthly) for what was as due at that time. E.g., in a previous business we had a lot of stock turnover and frequent invoices relating to the purchase of such stock, every Friday we would process payments for any invoices due up to/including the coming Tuesday. That obviously meant that in the strictest sense some invoices would go a few days over due, but that was never a problem.

Most book-keeping and accounting software should be able to tell you what is due at a given time and possibly be able to load a batch of payments direct to your bank (or at the least generate a file that can be uploaded to your bank to instruct a group of payments).

 

[NHAccountant]

As an addition to the above, some banks offer free book-keeping software that might help.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

What system/package do you use at the moment?
How many payments do you make a month?

My kneejerk response would be to employ someone part time to manage this, as your time is probably more valuable doing something creative or revenue-generating!

 

[King James]

Hi - @NHAccountant thank you - the invoices etc are reasonably batched it's not the issue - just lots of regular payments to freelancers, suppliers etc which is doing my head in. Yes I have heard we can load stuff automagically but not got it working yet ...

@Paul Kelly ICHYB on that note we are using Xero at the moment which is linked to Dext and we are setting up Teleroo to pay the salary. Apparently it can do that for others as @NHAccountant suggests

I have just had a discussion with my online PA about this and thinking I would setup another bank account - been meaning to do this anyway post Silicon Valley Bank and give them access to pay the invoices. I guess need one that's good for multiple users? ... was thinking Starling or maybe Santander.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Why not employ a part time bookkeeper to undertake bookkeeping in-house and pay invoices?

Your accountant may be able to suggest someone - very often they will know local bookkeepers.

 

[King James]

Thanks @MyAccountantOnline we work with an agency style accountant not a local firm and they do all the book keeping just not the payments.

I think I'm going to try and get a PA to make the payments. I just need to setup an online banking account for them.

 

[Frans VH]

This seems like an ideal job for a Virtual Assistant. Your banking software should allow that one person to do the input, but you still have to go in and check if all is ok before you 'commit' the transactions.

A book on the subject of offloading work to other people is https://www.buybackyourtime.com/ It contains interesting sections on how you can set this up.

 

[King James]

Hi @Frans VH i think you might be right - funny enough I have buybackyourtime in audio book ... i didn't get to that chapter though. I'm not sure my bank or xero has that option for a VA to create a payment for approval ... I think this is what something like Dext + Teleroo is supposed to do ... or I'm using the wrong bank. I imagine the buybackyourtime guy will be using US examples as well as he's from there?

 

[Frans VH]

Ah, great to hear. Did you like the book? It was an eye-opener for me.

As far as I remember, the author doesn't go into the level of detail about how to work with banking software. What I did like were the chapters where he explained how he records video in a few steps and then asks the VA to type it out in a process manual. I am guessing that banking and paying invoices is just one of the chores that take away your precious time.

 

[neilsolaris]

I do the bookkeeping for a busy freelance orchestra, and I often make 80 or more payments in a day. I've automated the process somewhat, but I do pay everyone manually, having usually added them as a payee previously. If they are already added as a payee, 80 payments would take me about 45 minutes.

The orchestra used to use a 3rd party company to make the payments. We'd send them a payment file in a specific format, and they'd make BACS payments on our behalf. However, whilst the company were relatively good value, HSBC would charge a fortune if the value of the payments was over £10,000. So it works out cheaper for me to make the payments manually myself.

I'd be happy to help, but I understand you'd need to hire someone you can absolutely trust, not some stranger online! But the virtual assistant option sounds like a perfect solution.