Large expenditure of time, high susceptibility to errors and no automation in the true sense of the word: Nowadays, it is no longer sufficient for trust companies to work only with a document management system (DMS). Many fiduciary companies have therefore linked their DMS to accounting software. In this blog post, you can read about what you need to consider and why you should avoid software or platform breaches.
With a document management system (DMS), documents can be stored, managed, and tracked, and paper-based documents can be converted into digital images. DMSs were originally developed to make paper documents available in digital form. With a DMS, thanks to the simplified storage, management and tracking of documents, you can reduce the time spent on bookkeeping somewhat compared to paper-based bookkeeping, but only to an extremely limited extent. With the right fiduciary software, on the other hand, you have a stable and secure platform to reduce the time spent on routine activities and to create, promote and bill innovative services.
Reading Tip: In this blog post, we show the main similarities and differences between a DMS and automated fiduciary software.
How do document management systems (DMS) and fiduciary software work together?
In practice, many trust companies have linked their DMS to accounting software through an interface. This allows the two systems to communicate with each other. However, it is common for software breaks to occur if the solutions used are not completely coordinated and manual entries might even be necessary.
7 reasons why software breaches are dangerous in fiduciary companies
Here you can find out why software or platform breaches are damaging your fiduciary business.
1. There are costs for having several software
The more solutions your company uses, the more licence and usage fees you will have to pay. Smart Accounting solutions for fiduciary companies, which allow you to completely automate routine tasks, only seem to cost more at first glance than accounting with your DMS and a digital accounting tool. When you consider the licence fees for the previous tools and the unit labour costs saved, fully automated accounting software is often worthwhile even for small trust companies.
2. Precious time is lost on repetitive tasks
Software breaches mean that you store data in several tools. In most DMSs, many booking and reconciliation tasks are not yet automated. Trustees, therefore, have to spend valuable time extracting and posting data, allocating accounts, or updating information. A fully automated accounting solution without software breaks, on the other hand, completely eliminates the need for manual data entry, reducing the effort involved in accounting to control tasks. You can use the time you save to create new services – which do not allow outsourcing to software – for your clients.
3. Manual entries increase the susceptibility to errors
Software breaches, as mentioned above, mean that you still have to manually add accounts or pull numbers out of receipts. When entering numbers manually, the error rate is high. Especially with a heavy workload, careless errors tend to occur. Did you know that fully automated accounting systems usually have the lowest error rate thanks to machine learning?
4. The potential of digitalisation cannot be fully exploited
Digitisation does not mean merely creating electronic versions of paper-based documents and related processes and processing them in a computer-based tool. Digitalisation offers fiduciaries the opportunity to outsource repetitive accounting tasks to software solutions and to open up new business areas. With the Fiduciary accounting software from Accounto the work is not simply digitised, but completely automated.
5. Cooperation within the company becomes more difficult
Who made the account allocations for the new suppliers? When was the last incoming invoice reconciled to the bank account? What data has already been extracted from documents by the DMS and what still needs to be done manually? Software breaks make teamwork significantly more difficult, as many dependencies arise. Handovers in the case of planned absences are also more difficult if there are software breaks in the processes.
6. Hiring and retaining young employees is difficult with outdated technologies
Current and future generations of workers no longer want to struggle with partially digitised solutions. They want to work with innovative software. Investments in a customised IT environment, machine learning, and other technologies benefit digital natives – who currently make up a large part of the Swiss labour market. Digital natives generally find it easier to delegate work to technology than their older colleagues. As a result, demand for digital and integrative fiduciary accounting solutions is likely to continue to grow among the fiduciaries of today and tomorrow. If you work with innovative technologies, you can score points in the recruitment process for the next generation of trustees.
7. Locally stored data is a concern in terms of data protection and cyber security
As DMSs are often not cloud-based, files stored in a DMS are often not automatically stored in a cloud. Software breaks between digital and automated solutions, thus make it more likely that files, or at least the latest versions of files, will be lost in the event of a hacker attack, system failure or loss of the work device.
With smart trust software, you no longer have to worry about data protection and cyber security in most cases. All relevant data and information are kept on the accounting platform. The platform company normally takes all basic security measures and creates an IT emergency plan (disaster recovery) so that no customer data is lost even in the event of perfidious hacker attacks or natural disasters.
Would you like to know how your trust company can benefit from the digitalisation of the SME world with the right trust software? Book a free demo of the Swiss accounting platform Accounto here.
