How to Develop an Accounting Solution and Succeed
The world accounting market value may reach $19.59 billion by 2026 because its products are valuable and sought-after. Though not every software fits all the business domains, so most users look for solutions to meet their particular needs in accounting.
If you are amongst those who want to know how to build such software, we’ll tell you about it, clarifying its types, functionality, etc.
Reasons to Build the Accounting Software
It’s almost impossible to imagine a business without accounting products. They help plan the expenses, gather and investigate information or draw up the balance. The other reasons to build accounting software are:
- Saving time. Financial software saves not only finances but also time by making processes work without human guidance.
- Efficiency. The accounting solutions allow users to successfully process large piles of data, change it, and memorize changes.
- Quick data handling lets accountants get information faster and provide businesses with reports.
- Accuracy in calculations. Even the experts make mistakes. Though, software processes data precisely and reduces these risks.
Accounting Software Categories
Before starting a development process, choose the accounting software category that fulfills your business needs the best.
The Spreadsheets
Accounting software (like Google Spreadsheets) is the primary tool for easy tasks. It’s represented by tables where users may enter all relevant data (like figures or text), calculate digits, etc. However, spreadsheets won’t help you run a medium or large company.
Enterprise Software
Large businesses can better operate with a significant volume of data via accounting software. The customized product works as an ERP solution, with capabilities such as planning, workflow optimization, and so on.
Commercial Products
Commercial apps (as Sage Accounting) can help small and medium-sized businesses handle the auditing process or create and send tax reports.
Accounting systems may also be classified by type of development.
Ready-Made Solutions
Creating the ready-made solution with the standard functionality, you don’t need to pay extra money for development, testing, or other services. It can also be easily implemented, especially if you collaborate with the software provider.
However, it’s not a unique accounting software able to be modified for particular needs. Dealing with third-party systems may be complex, and employee training might be difficult, which may result in workflow slowing and financial losses.
Custom Products
There’s no only product capable of solving all the business problems. However, the custom software may improve the situation by fulfilling the needs of a particular company. The staff acquaintance with such a product would be more accessible because it is built considering their business processes.
But note that you should find coders to build the product, track the development process, etc. This takes a lot of time and funds; however, the result is worth it and compensated in prospect.
Stages to Build Accounting Solution
After the accounting solution category is chosen, you can proceed with the development stages of the custom software.
- Analysis. The discussion of the future product’s concept between the team and clients. The specialists start researching all the pros and cons of the discussed idea.
- Evaluation & design. The staff members also prepare the project estimation and present it to the client while discussing the budget (influenced by the number of the product’s features). Then, the designers build wireframes, prototypes, and first sketches of the future interface, which the customer should approve.
- The development process is aimed at building an accounting MVP. The test-driven approach intended for predicting possible bugs before the development might also be applied.
- The support stage is focused on controlling the released solution for further bug fixing and upgrading. Here, the developers keep working on the product to reach its seamless functioning.
It should be noted: the accounting software processes a lot of financial data, and its damage or loss can cause severe effects. That’s why you should care about your product security, providing the customers with anti-malware and network firewall protection. All data should be encrypted, and the system logging might have a password and two-factor identification. Take these prevention measures seriously because they would boost the users’ trust in your product and help you avoid financial losses.
MVP Version for an Accounting Product
You should start creating your feature set first by thinking about the solution’s MVP functionality, including:
- Monitoring calculations, expenses & arrangements. Your software may allow processing and arranging invoices, calculating extra disbursements, etc.
- E-payments. Provide the app customers with the ability to pay through bank cards or accounts.
- Reporting. The system should generate monthly or quarterly reports and send them to the tax office.
- Integrations. Your accounting product should interact with e-commerce solutions, CRM, etc., assisting in business management.
You can also include VAT calculations, paylist handling, credit tracking, multiple access levels, and linking to the bank accounts. The app should also have diagrams and charts to structurize financial reports.
Wrapping Up
The accounting products are popular to develop nowadays: according to McKinsey, about 800 million jobs would be automated by 2030, and bookkeeping is one of them. However, it’s not so fast to build: the effective accounting software, including all the MVP features, would take approximately 1873 hours (or 10 development iterations roughly) and cost about $165,900.
To obtain precise estimations, you can apply to a skillful software development team. The competent specialists will consult you due to the most annoying business questions and help you build a profitable and competitive end product.