Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions, and is part of the process of accounting in business and other organizations. It involves preparing source documents for all transactions, operations, and other events of a business. Transactions include purchases, sales, receipts and payments by an individual person or an organization/corporation. There are several standard methods of bookkeeping, including the single-entry and double-entry bookkeeping systems. While these may be viewed as "real" bookkeeping, any process for recording financial transactions is a bookkeeping process.
Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.
Accounts payable (AP) is money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. It is distinct from notes payable liabilities, which are debts created by formal legal instrument documents. An accounts payable department's main responsibility is to process and review transactions between the company and its suppliers and to make sure that all outstanding invoices from their suppliers are approved, processed, and paid. Processing an invoice includes recording important data from the invoice and inputting it into the company's financial, or bookkeeping, system. After this is accomplished, the invoices must go through the company's respective business process in order to be paid.
In bookkeeping, a general ledger, is a bookkeeping ledger in which accounting data is posted from journals and aggregated from subledgers, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, fixed assets, purchasing and projects. A ledger account is created for each account in the chart of accounts for an organization, are classified into account categories, such as income, expense, assets, liabilities and equity, and the collection of all these accounts is known as the general ledger. The general ledger holds financial and non-financial data for an organization. Each account in the general ledger consists of one or more pages. An organization's statement of financial position and the income statement are both derived from income and expense account categories in the general ledger.
QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1983, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud-based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and payroll functions.
ReadSoft was a global provider of applications for automating business processes. ReadSoft was founded by two university students in Linköping, Sweden, in 1991. The company was headquartered in Helsingborg, Sweden and its shares were traded on the NASDAQ OMX – Stockholm Small Cap list. ReadSoft had operations in 17 countries and a partner network in an additional 70 nations.
NolaPro is a cloud / web-based ERP application running under a proprietary commercial license. It was first released in 2003 as a freeware accounting alternative to SAP ERP and QuickBooks because of its ability to scale in these markets.
AME Accounting Software is a business accounting software application developed by AME Software Products, Inc. AME Accounting Software includes Payroll, General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, 1099 Vendor Management, MICR check printing, and Direct Deposit. The software is mostly used by small and medium-size businesses, as well as accounting practices that process payroll and do bookkeeping for other businesses.
FreshBooks is accounting software operated by 2ndSite Inc. primarily for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a web-based software as a service (SaaS) model, that can be accessed through a desktop or mobile device.
WorkingPoint is a web-based application providing a suite of small business management tools. It is designed to offer a single point-of-access for all business management needs while offering a user-friendly interface. WorkingPoint’s functionalities include double-entry bookkeeping, contact management, inventory management, invoicing and bill & expense management.
NewViews is accounting software that is developed and distributed by Q.W.Page Associates Inc., a privately held company based in Aurora, Ontario, Canada. NewViews is noted for its integrated, non-modular approach, which enables the total financial cycle to be updated instantly as each transaction is added. It also allows users to customize nearly every aspect of a set of books. This flexibility comes with a trade-off, however, as NewViews is perceived to have a long learning curve, and to require an investment of time and effort to create a customized accounting solution. In a software review published in InfoWorld, NewViews was compared to "going to a tailor and handing him a bolt of cloth and a pair of scissors."
invoiceit is a range of business and accounting software, first written in 1998 by Bernard Reber of The Scrambled Card Company from Auckland, New Zealand. The software is sold on a try-before-you-buy basis.
Liberty Accounts is an integrated online accounting and payroll system designed specifically for small and medium enterprises, not-for-profit organisation and charities in the UK. Also described as a software as a service or SaaS cloud computing application, Liberty is available to business owners, treasurers and accountants.
Gem Accounts is a range of cloud-based business and accounting software, first released in May 2013 by Gem Software Solutions Pty Ltd from Brisbane, Australia. The software is available in a free version and is also sold on a SaaS model which includes a try-before-you-buy period.
Aplos Software is a privately held company that specializes in software as a service for nonprofit organizations. Their primary focus is simple software to manage the essential nonprofit tasks of fund accounting, nonprofit tax preparation and donor management for small, mid-sized, and large non-profit organizations.
Tipalti is an accounting software financial technology business that provides accounts payable, procurement and global payments automation software for businesses. Tipalti is headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices in London UK, Vancouver Canada, Toronto Canada, Amsterdam Netherlands, Plano Texas, and R&D in Glil-Yam Israel.
Reckon is an Australian software company that provides desktop and cloud-based accounting software for accountants, bookkeepers, small to medium businesses, and personal users. The company has offices in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Reckon is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with a market cap of A$138,000,000. Reckon has over 600,000 businesses using its software across Australia and New Zealand.
Tungsten Network is a global electronic invoicing firm that provides supply chain financing services from international offices in the United Kingdom, United States, Bulgaria, Germany, and Malaysia. As a small- to medium-sized IT company, they have an estimated revenue of £31.3 million (GBP) as of July 2017. Tungsten Corporation Plc (TUNG) is reported to trade regularly on the London Stock Exchange. Main competitors in this arena include Tradeshift, Ariba, Basware, Taulia and iPayables.
Sage Intacct, Inc is an American provider of cloud-based Financial management and services available in five regions around the globe -- including the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and South Africa. Its products offer cloud-based accounting applications that enable business payments, manage and pay bills, and facilitate payroll functions.
