Technology
Monchilla offers new cloud-based accounting and payroll option
A new, completely cloud-based, accounting system is about to give small business owners an alternative to QuickBooks, and some experts think even public accountants will prefer it over other bookkeeping systems.
Oct. 25, 2012
A new, completely cloud-based, accounting system is about to give small business owners an alternative to QuickBooks, and some experts think even public accountants will prefer it over other bookkeeping systems.
Monchilla.com announced its beta release at the 2012 Sleeter Accounting Solutions Conference. The Monchilla.com beta includes an entire suite of services including small business accounting, payroll, invoicing, billing, time tracking, electronic payments, and direct deposit for employees.
“We are thrilled to share Monchilla.com with the world. We know this will help thousands of small businesses, bookkeepers and accountants manage their businesses better and with a lot less work” said Jack Couch, Monchilla.com’s CEO. “By taking advantage of new technology, Monchilla.com makes your life easier, but it also gives you a great dashboard that gives you insight into the health of your business.”
Monchilla.com downloads transactions from your bank and uses repeating transactions to provide future financial data while reducing time spent keying in transactions. Large businesses have separate departments to deal with payroll, financial accounting (historical records) and management accounting (forward looking accounting). The idea behind Monchilla is to bring all of these together into one package so that small businesses can get some of the benefits big businesses already enjoy.
Monchilla.com also provides something it calls “turn-by-turn business navigation.” This allows users to do “what-if” analysis to see how your business will be affected if you hire a new employee or take on a small business loan. The “write-up” feature is also unusual for a cloud solution, as it allows fast, keyboard only data entry so accountants can quickly update the books before filing taxes.
Randy Johnston, a widely-respected thought leader for the profession and one of the most popular speakers at ASC2012, said “One of the interesting things about Monchilla.com is that it has payroll integrated at such a low cost. I think this and its management accounting provide a solid revenue opportunity to small business consultants and accountants.”
For businesses that would like to keep QuickBooks they can still take advantage of the impressive dashboard by simply uploading their QuickBooks backup file. The Monchilla dashboard has all of the major financial statements (income, cashflow, balance sheet, etc) including a very interesting cash balance report that will alert you to a cash shortfall. Because it is completely cloud based, it is easy to share these reports with clients or other support staff.
Monchilla’s employee time tracking features can also be used with QuickBooks – good news for small businesses that have been forced to pay for a third party time tracking solution after Intuit discontinued it’s time tracking solution in December.
Monchilla.com is a self funded startup of 11 that already boasts over 1000 small businesses that signed up through it’s inviation only beta.
During Beta testing, Monchilla.com is available free of charge by going to www.monchilla.com and clicking on the “sign-up for a free account” button. When Monchilla releases the final version early next year it will charge users $5 per employee per month for payroll. Businesses that don’t use the payroll service will not be charged. According to the Monchilla.com website, the average company of five will save $800 pear year when switching from QuickBooks.