Small business owners work hard and are often on the move. You may be out meeting clients, working on-site or travelling between jobs. If you have an office – at home or anywhere else – you probably don’t spend a lot of time in it.

Mobile phones, tablets and laptops have made working on the go much easier. You can check messages and emails, manage appointments, update business social media accounts and use apps to create and share documents.

But did you know you can also manage your accounts on the go? Mobile accounting apps let you manage expenses, send invoices and track your cash flow from anywhere. There’s no need to wait until you get back to the office at the end of the day.

Here’s how a mobile accounting app can work for you.

An accountant in your pocket

Using a mobile accounting app is like having a bookkeeper or accountant with you at all times. Some of the tasks you can accomplish include:

Invoicing on the move

Send invoices directly from your mobile device, straight after you finish a piece of work. You won’t have to waste your evenings on billing, and you’ll be far less likely to forget about sending an invoice.

Check payments

Mobile accounting apps pull fresh bank data through every day so you can check to see if and when payments have landed.

Photographing and storing receipts

Do you have a pocket or glovebox full of receipts? Don’t just throw them in a box to sort out later. Take a photo of them with your phone and store them with your accounts, so they can’t be mislaid. You can even use apps that process your receipts for you. Just take a photo of the receipt and an app like Receipt Bank will enter the information into your accounts automatically.

Bank reconciliation

You probably dread reconciling bank transactions with your accounting records at the end of the month. Smart mobile accounting apps help you avoid painful backlogs by making it easy to reconcile your accounts every day. Yesterday’s bank transactions show on your phone, allowing you to run through and create or confirm matches with your accounts over your morning coffee. You need never fall behind again.

Keeping an eye on your cash flow

Keeping tabs on money coming in and going out is vital. Without good cash flow your business can go under – even if it’s profitable on paper. Mobile accounting apps help you check cash flow whenever you like, with simple dashboards that show you things like revenue, expenditure, overdue invoices and payments that are due.