Sometimes you just have to change things up — and this is one of those times.

We’ve had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wayne Zielke, the CEO of LedgerDocs, at a number of conferences over the last year. Not only were those meetings pleasurable, but also informative.  He is a well-spoken, hard-working gentleman who truly understands not only his business but also those of the customers who rely on the services that he provides.

We took the time to ask Mr. Zielke some questions about LedgerDocs, the story behind how it came into existence, and why you might be interested in implementing this application as a solution for your business.

TD Accounting: First of all, we would like to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule.  We’ve decided to provide our customers and readers with an understanding of the options they have when implementing a platform into their eco-systems.

TD: How did LedgerDocs come into existence?

Mr. Zielke: We actually started off as bookkeepers ourselves. I came from a public practice accounting background; having run a large CA practice, I saw how much bookkeeping was a struggle for our small business clients. So in 2002, I decided to assemble a team of financial and technology professionals to create an online bookkeeping service. This would allow for staff to access clients’ accounts remotely.  Fast forward several years, and experiencing continued growth and success, we noticed a fundamental flaw in the method of how bookkeepers share information with clients, this resulted in the design and development of an internal document management system.

The success we had using our own file system convinced us that this document system could help other firms overcome their own challenges with receiving and sending files from clients. We decided to name it LedgerDocs.

TD: What was the catalyst that prompted the creation of this application?

Mr. Zielke: It was hard to keep track of information coming in from clients, both physical and digital form, and also through the various means they were coming in. We also wanted to embrace cloud storage and the benefits this provided, including the ability to collaborate across multiple staff members and clients. The success we achieved with our own bookkeeping firm has shaped the product to be as Bookkeeper and user-friendly as possible, and allows users to fully customize how they organize and receive files.

TD: Would you consider this strictly an application geared towards the professional, the SMB or both?

Mr. Zielke: Definitely both. For an accounting or bookkeeping firm or individual, LedgerDocs is scalable and easy to use. This simplicity of use makes LedgerDocs an attractive option for those starting their own business or existing firms that need to streamline their processes.

This simplicity also helps SMB clients get on boarded to get information flowing to their financial team as soon as possible.

TD: What would you consider the top features of your application and what would make these features special to our reader?

Mr. Zielke: Fully Customizable Inbox and folder structure so you can set up LedgerDocs how you want it to be for your clients. All new documents come in through the Inbox so you can easily track what needs attention. Clients have the option to upload in 5 different ways.

Merging and Splitting Images and PDFs – customized options to combine images into PDFs, split PDFs apart all inside of the app so you don’t have to download to your computer and use Adobe Acrobat. We realize client documents come in all shapes and sizes and want to be able to handle as many cases as possible.

Request Documents with simple automatically scheduled templates, to automatically remind clients when you need information from them.

Natively integrated QuickBooks Online so you can post transactions on both the revenue and expense side and have the corresponding source document show up as an attachment in QuickBooks Online to review later. We don’t use OCR or extraction; rather, we cut down data entry but prepopulating fields based on the last time you posted transactions to that supplier or customer.

TD: What are the future plans for LedgerDocs?

Mr. Zielke: We’re constantly working on new feature enhancements and new integrations and are planning some big announcements by the end of this year!

We also plan to release some custom setup options for tax preparers who are looking to use LedgerDocs as a tool to gather tax slips and forms from their clients to make the process of collecting the information needed to file a return as simple as possible.

TD: What platforms does LedgerDocs integrate with? 

Mr. Zielke:

• QuickBooks Online for posting Bills, Expenses and Invoices from LedgerDocs
• Dropbox – allowing you to sync a Dropbox folder to your LedgerDocs Inbox
• Fujitsu ScanSnap – using your ix500 or ix100 to scan wirelessly from your scanner to LedgerDocs without the need for a computer
• Canon – scanning from your desktop scanner via USB straight into LedgerDocs

If you are interested in learning more about LedgerDocs and how they can help you help yourself, then reach out or get started today!

Until the next time,