At A4G we pride ourselves on the advice we give. We continually promote cloud accounting, account automation and streamlining your finance function.

But we’re not just promoting for the sake of it. All the changes I’m suggesting below are changes we have already implemented in our business, and we want to share the experiences we’ve had so that you can benefit. Not just the ‘how’s’ but the ‘why’s’…

 

Cloud accounting

We moved our own financial data on to Xero just over 2 years ago for a number of reasons:

  • The package we were using was stuck on a desktop and didn’t allow any flexibility in terms of access away from the office
  • We had to incur a costly annual renewal fee
  • We were limited on the number of users we could have accessing the data
  • We couldn’t easily tailor reports
  • There was no scope for automation
  • We had to get ready for making tax digital
  • The software developers simply weren’t innovating
  • Shall I go on?

We made the change and we haven’t looked back. We’re more efficient, make better use of our data and we’re able to fully utilise the skills of our finance team.

 

Automation

One of the biggest benefits of a package like Xero is the automation of data entry. It not only makes processes much more efficient, but increases accuracy and transparency.

The tedious nature of data entry is largely eliminated. Laborious data entry feels outdated and can dull motivation, it leads to an uneven workload and causes frustration. By automating longwinded processes, we haven’t replaced any people with technology, instead we have freed them up for more valuable analysis and strategic work.

Of course, automation alone won’t transform your finance function but it will leverage the time of your team, increasing accuracy and transparency.

 

Integration

Another step forward was made when we were able to integrate our accounts with other software. Initially we were just using bank feeds to import our bank transactions every night. We took this a step further and introduced a piece of credit control software called Chaser (You may have heard us shouting about it) which automatically pings out emails when invoices pass their due date.

You might have seen we’re running an event on the importance of having a credit control

We’re always looking at what else we can do to further improve our accounts function, and the data we get, and I have no doubt there will be more changes to come.

 

What could overhauling your finance function do for you and your business?

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