Most of small freight forwarders are using a combination of software for their daily operations and accounting. For example, they would use spreadsheets or specialized systems for operations and a standard accounting package such as Simply Accounting or Quickbooks for billing and for getting their financials.
While these accounting software are full of features and are fit for a lot of businesses, they lack some important features that are keys for freight forwarders. Let me enumerate a few ones and compare it to our integrated software for small Canadian Freight Forwarders.
Multi Currency
Most of the small accounting packages on the market are not really built for multi-currency. For example, when you bill your same client in USD, CAD and EUR, you would have to create 3 separate accounts in the system. Sending a unique statement to your client becomes impossible. Also, forget about maintaining a CAD credit limit.
NEO6 let you bill your client in different currencies without any problem. All under a single account. The statements will show the invoices grouped by currencies and you will be able to establish a credit limit in Canadian dollars. The system will take in consideration the current exchange rate to calculate the current value of the account.
Accrual Expenses
It is hard to maintain the amounts of provision to keep for upcoming invoices. Especially in maritime freight, the delays between the time you gave orders to vendors and the time you receive the actual invoices could be very long.
With NEO6, each purchase order is entered in the appropriate transport file. It updates immediately your GL accrual expense account, in the proper currency. When you receive invoices from vendors, against these purchase orders, it is also affecting the account immediately. When you look at your financials, you know exactly and immediately your real profit, taking the provisions in consideration.
Profit Analysis
When using separate operation and accounting system, getting the profit per file (or per client, or per agent, or per carrier, etc...) requires a lot of manipulation. Since the costs and the invoices are produced on the accounting side, you must reference it in each transaction. Since your files are not known by your accounting software, it cannot be looked up so it is easy to do errors.
In NEO6, each operation related transaction - purchase order, vendor invoice or client invoice - is entered in each transport file. The profit analysis per file is live and easy to get.
Fully Integrated
When you have a separate accounting system, the data has to be duplicated. In most of the case, your accountant must retype information and work purchases in parallel. In the best scenario, the information is pushed electronically to accounting. In any cases, maintaining two sets of information lends to more work, errors and desynchronized information.
NEO6 integrates operation modules and accounting modules in a single comprehensive system. All data is within the same database. Your information is always up to date. As soon an operation person does a work order or an invoice, it is immediately reflected in your financials.
Conclusion
Simply Accounting, Quick books and all other standard accounting packages are nice and efficient for a lot of small businesses. Due to the particularity of the freight forwarding company operations, it is definitely not the best fit for your company.
If you want to be lean and efficient, and if you want to have a 360 visibility on your numbers, you need an integrated software that will transparently work for operation and accounting.
NEO6 is a complete software designed specifically for small Canadian Freight Forwarders. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It is affordable. It handles all your mode of transport, Air, Ocean and Ground, for your Import, Export and Domestic shipments. And it integrates a complete accounting module.
Get more information here.
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