As an accountancy firm focused on growth, we at James Scott were looking for that special something that could help take us to the next level.
After all, you can’t expect a team to take on an ever-increasing workload, even if you do invest in an extra one or two specialists to help out.
And for our clients, the efficiency and insights you get from digital accounting are irreplaceable – for any modern accounting firm, cloud software is a must.
The problem for many businesses and their accountants is the sheer amount of software out there. It was hard enough to narrow our favourite Xero apps down to five.
But there is one app that we find ourselves coming back to time and time again: Dext. Read on for our review.
Three in one
First, Dext is a well-rounded app, technically split into three individual ones each with their own uses and functions. This widens your choice, and means that you don’t have to fork out a large sum of money for features you’re never going to use.
It’s still affordable to get all three, too.
In our favourite apps list, we mentioned Dext Prepare specifically, which is the main reason we’ve been able to handle our extra workloads and clients so well as we’ve grown.
Quite simply, Dext Prepare is all about making bookkeeping more streamlined. With it, you can capture all of your paperwork in a digital format, by taking a picture of your receipts or forwarding a PDF of an invoice, and condense it all to a single dashboard.
What’s especially useful is how you can connect to over 1,400 suppliers to automatically receive invoices, statements and bills, eliminating the exhausting paper trail of traditional bookkeeping.
Next, there’s Dext Commerce, which is essential for eCommerce businesses, easily helping you ensure tax compliance and consolidate sales data.
This fetches your sales data from multiple eCommerce and point-of-sale platforms – including Amazon, Shopify, Stripe, eBay and more – and brings it together in a standardised format, ready to export to your accounting software.
Last but not least, we have Dext Precision. This has really helped us stay on track with day-to-day tasks and spot anomalies before they even become a problem. It’s also perfect for our bespoke business health reporting and virtual FD services, something our clients value a lot.
Clean and easy to use
Ease of access and understanding is crucial for any piece of software. Not only is it important to boost productivity to the highest level possible, but also to train up newcomers. Even some of our less tech-savvy clients got the hang of it after minimal guidance from ourselves.
However, in today’s age, most accountants have at least some experience with some cloud software, so it’s important the one you choose is easy to transition to. For us, Dext offered that opportunity.
What’s more, its clean design and dashboard mean you only need to glance at the data to understand it. This is especially when it comes to spotting potential problems without having to dig into the details.
It’s very easy to integrate Dext systems with Xero, too, which is why we highly recommend it to clients as a way to keep a record of their expenses, sync up sales data, or carry out reporting tasks.
Support and pricing
When we say we love Dext, we don’t just mean the app, but the organisation itself, given their prompt, friendly and useful customer support.
The level of support is extensive, including:
- email/help desk
- FAQs/forum
- phone support
- knowledge base
- chat.
So, if you’re completely stuck with something, or just want to research some tips and pointers, they’ve got you covered.
When it comes to pricing, Dext has three main packages, which can be paid at a monthly or annual rate, scaling from five users and 300 monthly documents, all the way up to 30 users and 4,000 monthly documents.
This setup means you shouldn’t have to pay for extra features until you need them – and when your business’s requirements grow, you have the flexibility to scale the software with them.
Fortunately, Dext offers free trials, so you can test it out yourself. We’re also happy to talk you through it if you’re not sure, and get you set up with the right online accounting system for your business.
Talk to us about cloud accounting.