Accounting and CRM

No matter how large or small a company might be, it needs to make sure it is always on top of its accounting processes. This matters for several reasons. For instance, businesses need to know basic things such as how much money they’ve spent, how much they’ve bought in and whether this is balanced. They also need accurate records for auditing purposes – and good accounting records can highlight areas of the business that have been successful and areas where more work might be needed.

This is why accounting and CRM systems are so closely linked. As you probably know, CRM stands for customer relationship management and, like accounting, it is an important part of any business. A good piece of CRM software can help a business
to keep track of customer data, including all of its clients and the progress of sales as they proceed.

As well as being very useful for any members of staff who are involved with sales and customer service, this is also useful from an accounting point of view. This is because a good CRM system helps to keep everything in order. After all, accounting isn’t
necessarily all financial and so the rest of the company’s records also need to be clear and accounted for. This helps to make the company more accountable to stakeholders – and also makes it more efficient as it will always know what is going on and where relevant information is.

For instance, as well as financial information, the accounting department might also be interested to see how much your contact list has grown in recent months. This is something they would be able to glean from your CRM software, as this would act as a central database with all of the relevant information stored on it. They might also want to check particular sales to make sure the figures they have got match up; the information stored in the CRM system could again be useful here, especially if an accurate and comprehensive record has been kept.

Other members of staff are also likely to need to account for their actions in the course of their work. A good example here is communications: if someone has the responsibility to send out a regular email newsletter to your company’s contacts, they might need to keep a regular check on this to evidence their actions. CRM solutions can be used to schedule and administrate communications such as this, meaning that they can act as a valuable accounting tool for more than just money.

Overall, CRM software does not replace your ordinary accounting software as its primary focus is on customers rather than financial issues. However, it is easy to see how these two areas overlap, as well as how a good CRM system can aid your
accounting processes and make sure your business keeps accurate records for all aspects of the company. This way, if your business is ever subject to an audit you should be able to prove that you have followed procedure as necessary and that you
have a high quality system in place to account for all of the actions you undertake.