What is Money Forward Cloud (for Individuals)?
Today, I will summarize about Money Forward Cloud, an accounting software. This page focuses on the individual-oriented service, but there is also a version available for businesses.
The explanation here also briefly touches on some features of the business version.
Basic Information
| Product Name | Money Forward Cloud (for Individuals) |
| Company | Money Forward, Inc. |
| Official Website | https://biz.moneyforward.com/tax_return/ |
| Launch Year | 2012 |
| Free Plan | Not available (Free trial available for some plans) |
Overview
Money Forward Cloud (for Individuals) is a Japanese accounting software designed for sole proprietors and those earning income from side jobs.
The service is run by Money Forward, Inc., headquartered in Tokyo.
The individual version of Money Forward Cloud primarily offers “Money Forward Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku(means Tax Filing)” as its main product. This software supports sole proprietors with bookkeeping and preparing tax filing documents.
By subscribing to this service, users can also access other features like “Cloud Seikyusyo (means Invoice)” for creating estimates and invoices, “Cloud Keihi (means Expenses)” for expense management, and “Cloud Box”, an online storage solution compliant with Japan’s Electronic Books Preservation Act.
These products are seamlessly integrated, allowing for streamlined and efficient management of accounting tasks as a whole.
A smartphone app is also available.
Google Trend Data
Japan
Worldwide
Similar to Freee, it is clear that Money Forward has steadily gained interest since the 2010s.
What Money Forward Can Do
You can access all the available services (software) within the platform below.
For individual users, Money Forward Cloud offers the following accounting services.
Each service works as an independent software but integrates seamlessly with others.
- Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku (Tax filing): Handles sales and expense entries and facilitates tax filing.
- Cloud Seikyusyo (Invocing): Enables the issuance of estimates, delivery notes, and invoices.
- Cloud Keihi (Expenses): Streamlines expense reimbursement processes.
- Cloud Box: Compliant with Japan’s Electronic Books Preservation Act. Simplifies uploading electronic documents and offers robust search features, promoting a paperless workflow.
- Cloud Saimu Shiharai (Accounts Payable): Digitalizes payment workflows and tasks through API integration.
- Cloud Kintai (Attendance): Manages employee attendance records.
- Cloud Kyuyo (Payroll): Handles payroll calculations and management.
- Cloud Nenmatsu Chosei (Year-End Adjustment): Gathers declaration information, calculates refunds or additional payments, and facilitates electronic filing.
- Cloud Shakai Hoken (Social Insurance): Prepares necessary documents and supports electronic submissions.
- Cloud My Number: Manages employee personal identification numbers.
- Cloud Keiyaku (Contracts): Moves contract signing from paper and stamps to an online process.
Basically, when managing individual business tasks, using “Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku,” “Cloud Seikyusyo,” and “Cloud Box” allows for efficient accounting operations. However, utilizing additional services can enable even greater efficiency as the scale of operations grows.
Let’s Take a Closer Look at the Core Services
Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku(Tax filing) and Its Features
Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku provides functionality to record business transactions and automatically generate tax return forms and blue return financial statements (青色申告).
Below are the key features:
- Automatically imports transaction details when bank accounts or credit cards are registered.
- Automatically suggests corresponding account titles for the imported transaction details.
- Learns from registered entries, improving the accuracy of automatically suggested account titles.
- Automatically generates Tax Return Form B (確定申告書B) and Blue Return Financial Statements (青色申告決算書).
- Supports e-Tax, allowing you to send the required tax filing documents directly from the admin console to complete the application process.
- Reporting features
- Enables to categorize journal entries by setting “departments,” allowing you to separate transactions for multiple businesses.
- Enables customization of account titles.
- Enables to register clients, which can be applied to entries, facilitating categorization of revenue reports and other analyses by client.
Transactions retrieved from linked bank accounts and credit cards are automatically assigned account titles when imported into Money Forward. If the assignment is incorrect, it can be manually adjusted. By registering the correct journal entry, similar transactions in the future will have the same details automatically applied.
This process gradually reduces the effort required for journal entries.
Money Forward Cloud currently does not support blue tax return statements (or white tax statements) for agricultural income. While it is possible to register journal entries for agricultural income by manually setting up account titles, it is important to note that the software cannot generate financial statements for blue return and tax filing forms for agricultural income based on these journal entries. Please keep this limitation in mind.
Cloud Seikyusyo(Invoicing) and Its Features
Cloud Seikyusyo is a service that allows you to create estimates, delivery slips, and invoices.
It integrates seamlessly with the journal entries in Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku, enabling efficient accounting operations.
Here are the main features:
- Create and issue quotes, delivery slips, invoices, and receipts.
- Convert created quotes into delivery slips, invoices, or receipts.
- Automatically generate recurring documents monthly.
- Switch and customize templates.
- Register logos and stamps.
- Export and download as PDF files.
- Automatically populate client information.
- Automatically input item details.
- Send emails directly from the admin cosole.
- Manage payment statuses, including tracking unpaid invoices.
- Receive alerts for unpaid invoices.
The invoice information you create is linked to the journal entries in Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku and can be recorded as accounts receivable.
Cloud Keihi(Expenses) and its features
Cloud Keihi is a service designed for managing expense reimbursements, including expense applications, approvals, and receipt storage.
Key Features are as follows.
For Applicants and Approvers
- Register expenses directly from transaction details linked to credit cards or e-money accounts.
- Automatically collect receipt data from various transportation services such as trains, flights, and hotels.
- When you capture receipts or invoices with your smartphone, the app uses OCR to extract text and convert the receipt image into data, including the date, amount, and payee.
- Complete the application and approval process entirely within the app.
For Accounting Personnel
- Review submitted expense data and attached receipts online.
- Display errors or alerts based on conditions such as the presence of attendees for meeting or entertainment expenses, attached receipts, or duplication of entries.
- View monthly expense usage amounts for each employee, department, or category in graph format.
For individual users, expenses can be directly registered through “Cloud Kakutei Shinkoku”. However, by using “Cloud Keihi,” you can efficiently handle journal entries. Simply capture receipts or invoices with the mobile app, and it will read and process the content for you. It’d be more productive when your business have one or more staffs.
As a side note, corporate business versin of Money Forward offers the following features:
- Integration with accounting software and POS systems to monitor sales performance.
- Accountants can seamlessly review financial data online without the need for USB drives or physical documents.
- Automatic Financial Statement Generation: Supports automatic creation of profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and trial balances.
Cloud Box and its Features
Cloud Box is a storage service equipped with all the features required for compliance with Japan’s Electronic Books Preservation Act (Electronic Transactions category). It offers unlimited storage capacity and user access.
Key features are as follows.
- Unlimited storage for electronically received data.
- Allows saving information such as “Client Name,” “Date,” and “Amount” alongside the stored data for easy searchability.
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) support is planned for future updates.
Pricing
The pricing for the personal version of Money Forward Cloud offers several plans. A free trial is also available.
For the latest information, please visit the official website.
