Happy New Year! 🎉🎉🎉
When a client goes live on Rundoo, we purchase a T-shirt from them and ask their employees to sign it. We hang those shirts in our office, where they serve as a physical reminder that our clients drive everything we do.
We started 2023 with just one client and one shirt on the wall. We now have 36, with dozens slated to make the switch in the next couple months. As we enter 2024, we are committed to this practice! And we’re excited to see what this photo looks like on January 1, 2025 😊
Accounting Software
This month, we are launching an integrated accounting suite that Rundoo clients can use instead of Quickbooks.
Why? The same reason we have integrated card processing; an integrated mobile app for contractors to view sales and pay bills; and an integrated mobile app for you to count inventory, check analytics, and take customer notes…
Running your business is simpler with integrated software.
For clients coming from Epicor Eagle or Quickbooks POS, this will feel natural—both have integrated accounting. For everyone else, this will be a big improvement! Most other systems—including Decor Fusion, Autologue, Lightspeed, Celerant, Genesis, and until now, Rundoo—do not have accounting.
Today, let’s walk through the main benefits of integrated accounting.
An industry-specific chart of accounts.
The first step in building your accounting system is defining your chart of accounts (COA). These are the assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses that all transactions map to.
A generic accounting solution like Quickbooks requires defining each account and how your business uses it. Because a small business may have tens or even hundreds of accounts, this process can be time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to maintain.
By contrast, integrated, industry-specific solutions like Rundoo pre-define the relevant accounts for you.
In Rundoo, we call these default accounts. They capture all the activity that happens in your point-of-sale system: sales, returns, purchase orders, inventory counts, transfers, cash drawer management, sales tax, and so on.
The only custom accounts you need to add are for transactions occurring outside of Rundoo. Most of these are non-inventory expenses: rent, utilities, payroll, insurance, and so on.
No data transfer.
A generic accounting solution like Quickbooks requires mapping all transaction data to your chart of accounts. We’ve heard from clients that this is a huge headache! Clients do this in a bunch of different ways, each of which is time-consuming and prone to error:
File Import – Export files from the point-of-sale and import them into Quickbooks.
Excel Journal – Keep a manual record in Excel of what happened in the business each day.
Journal Entries – Make a summary journal entry directly into their accounting system.
By contrast, with an integrated solution like Rundoo, you don’t need to transfer data! Rundoo’s accounting software already has access to all of your transactions.
Additionally, Rundoo knows how to categorize that data to your chart of accounts. For example, when a customer with a charge account purchases something, Rundoo knows to map that transaction to the following five accounts:
Sales Income – You earned revenue from the sale.
Inventory COGS – You incurred the cost of the inventory that was sold.
Inventory Asset – Your inventory on hand decreased in value.
Sales Tax Payable – You collected sales tax that you’ll pay later.
Accounts Receivable – The customer now owes you.
All this to say, your accounting just works.
FAQs
Does Rundoo’s accounting software cost extra? No, we won’t charge anything for our accounting software to clients who switch before April 30, 2024. We deeply appreciate early adopters and all of the product feedback they provide. Later down the line, we may add an additional fee for accounting for new clients.
Is this ready? As with most large features, we are looking for beta testers before releasing to everyone. If you are interested in testing, please book time on my calendar, and we can walk through it.
Can I switch later in the year? Yes. We have had the most interest for January because: (1) this is the slow season for most paint stores in the US, and (2) we just started a new year. That said, just as with point-of-sale, you can change accounting software any time in the year.
Can Rundoo do everything Quickbooks can? Definitely not! Rundoo’s accounting is built specifically for paint & hardware retailers that operate within our ecosystem.
Can you meet with my bookkeeper or accountant? Sure! We have found that most businesses have an internal bookkeeper and a licensed CPA. We would love to meet with either to discuss Rundoo’s new accounting features.
What next?
In the coming months, we plan to write a lot about accounting:
Accounting 101 – The accounting equation: Assets = Liabilities + Equity.
Update 1/12: Accounting 101: Assets = Liabilities + Equity 🧮
Average Cost – How to accurately track cost of goods sold (COGS).
Update 1/30: Why average cost matters 📐
Payables – How to ensure payments to vendors are correct.
Update 2/11: Linking payments to orders 🖇️
Reconciliation – How integrating a bank account enables automatic reconciliation.
Update 3/24: How integrated banking reduces error 🏦
With that, happy 2024!
👋