When managing your business’ finances, it pays to make the process as simple as possible. This is where Dext software comes in as a particularly useful platform that allows for easy, fast, and automated management of your receipts and invoices. But what exactly is Dext, and how can it be best used to its fullest potential? In this blog from Kirkwood Wilson, we explore what the program does and our five best tips on how to use Dext and its many useful tools to save you time.
What is Dext?
Dext is a hugely helpful accounting platform that makes managing financial documents much easier. This allows you to scan documents, such as receipts and invoices, in from your smartphone to make bookkeeping effortless. As a result, it eliminates the need for physical paperwork, for simple, fully digital finance management. This data can then sync with digital accounting software, such as through Xero cloud accounting, to fully automate and streamline your accounting.
How to Use Dext More Efficiently – Our Best 5 Tips
Dext is a highly convenient tool to have on your side when managing your business’ finances, though there are a few points to bear in mind to get the most out of this software and optimise your data most effectively. To help you out, these are our five most recommended tips on how to use Dext to its fullest potential.
Master “Supplier Rules”
To make entering your receipts much faster, you needn’t categorise each one every time. Dext features many useful tools for automation to ensure that you don’t have to repeatedly enter data when you don’t have to. By using the “Supplier Rules” feature, you can set rules to correspond with categorisations. For example, this would allow every receipt that is from Shell to automatically be categorised under a “Motor Expenses” category and correctly apply the right VAT rule.
Use “Invoice Fetch” for Utility Bills
The act of downloading PDF invoices can become time-consuming through having to log into a variety of different websites and find each one. Thankfully, another useful feature from Dext means that you can sidestep this entirely. By connecting Dext to each site, it can automatically fetch these invoices as soon as they’re generated and save you from having to manually collect them.
Use the “Split” Feature for Personal vs Business Use
When records need to be kept separate within the same document, Dext’s “Split” feature allows you to do so easily. This is especially useful for separating between business and personal use, allowing for individual lines of a document to be filed under separate categories when needed, between relevant expense accounts or the Director’s Loan Account.
Use “Bank Match” as an Accuracy Check
As duplicate entries and uncoded payments are a common bookkeeping error, “Bank Match” is a useful Dext feature that helps to avert both. When Dext is connected to your Xero bank feed, it checks whether a receipt matches a transaction leaving the bank. If it does, you’ll see a small “Match” icon next to the receipt. This helps to confirm that the receipt has actually been paid and that nothing is missing.
Enable “Warn when creating new supplier”
When extracting data from receipts or invoices, there is the risk that Dext may create multiple versions of the same supplier. For example, it may interpret Amazon as “Amazon,” “Amazon UK,” and “Amzn Mktplace”. To avoid this, be sure to turn on the “Warn when creating new supplier” setting. Then, the platform will prompt you to reuse an existing supplier or merge it with one already on file to keep your data correctly organised and clean.
How We Use Dext at Kirkwood Wilson
We highly value using Dext for our own bookkeeping services. Its efficiency allows us to reduce the costs of our services by speeding up the processing of invoices into our bookkeeping software, Xero.
We find that a breadth of individuals find it useful when our clients use it, being helpful for directors, managers, and employees alike. In particular, it is especially useful for quickly collecting invoices while on business trips, with data easily logged with a quick smartphone photo.
Streamline Your Accountancy Processes with Us
When using Dext, simply use our tips on how to use Dext above, and you can make your bookkeeping more efficient than ever before.
At Kirkwood Wilson, we’re not just here to work for you, but we’ll work with you to ensure that your accountancy processes are as smooth as possible. As such, we can help to get you started with using Dext software and other convenient platforms with advice and guidance from our experienced, helpful team.
For a free review of your accountancy setup or to discuss any of our other accounting services for businesses, get in touch with us today. We will be more than happy to discuss your best options with you.
