Accounting? There’s an app for that

Pastel’s My Business Online accounting service is now available as an application for Samsung mobile devices. By Craig Wilson.

Accounting software company Softline Pastel has released an Android application for its My Business Online cloud-based accounting service. It’s available through the Samsung App Store.

The application is designed for mobile phones, with a tablet version expected to follow in coming weeks.

Pastel My Business Online is an online accounting service aimed at small businesses. The mobile app offers a simplified dashboard view with the ability to display graphs and drill down into all transactions in more detail.

For now, the Android app is only available via the Samsung Apps store, and only for the Galaxy S and S2 handsets. There’s also already a version for Apple’s iPhone.

Daryl Blundell, sales director at Softline Pastel, says the Android app is limited to Samsung devices for the time being because Pastel is in discussions with the Korean electronics giant about a strategic partnership that could result in the software being preloaded on its devices.

The app will eventually be made available for a wider range of Android-powered devices, but may be delayed depending on the outcome of Pastel’s negotiations with Samsung.

Blundell says a version of the app designed for tablets will follow and will include broader functionality such as the ability to create quotes and purchase orders. The mobile phone version, meanwhile, is “mostly for viewing data and minor customer relationship management”.

Businesses can use the mobile app to buy and sell inventory and manage their customers, suppliers and inventory items. The service also keeps track of sales per customer and purchases by supplier by item, and allows users to create customer categories, supplier categories and item categories with which to analyse sales.

Users can also import bank statements into the online service rather than capturing each transaction manually and can then view this information via the app.

There is already a version of the My Business Online app for Apple’s iOS and Blundell says the company will add more functionality to it shortly and develop an app for the iPad.

Work is also underway on Android and iOS applications for Pastel’s personal financial management tool, Pastel My Money, which the company launched at the beginning of June.

Blundell says the company will also consider developing applications for Window 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices but is holding off until there is a sufficiently high number of devices in the market to justify the effort and cost of development.  — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media