In a world in which data is king, it may seem like a no-brainer for different teams in companies to be sharing their insights and making the most of what each side has to offer. But for many organisations, there’s still a disconnect between the data coming out of the finance team – like profit and loss, expenditure rates and more – and the data from the HR team, such as absence, sickness and morale levels. This blog post will look at which of the two – if either – is more reliable and how they can be brought together for sustainable, connected data sharing.
Finance
Finance departments are often tasked with the question of how to increase profitability and carry out the job of cost control. In order to make these decisions, significant quantitative analysis must take place – and there’s no doubt that this can often be precise and accurate if carried out in the right way. Connected working, however, can bolster the findings made by a finance department even further. The qualitative data available from a HR department – from an employee feedback survey, say – can provide illuminating context and helpful explainers which help finance to see their own data in a new light. With the Accounting Web survey reporting that a whole 10% of financial directors think that their role has become less strategic, meanwhile, allowing finance to work alongside HR in this way means finance teams have more of a chance to contribute to holistic strategy-setting.
HR
Over in HR, the main questions are usually how to work more efficiently and how to increase productivity. The sorts of datasets produced by HR can be objective and quantitative, like in finance – but because they are often based on subjective, qualitative evidence such as employee feedback forms, there’s still a risk built in. One person’s idea of a positive workplace, for example, may be another person’s idea of an average workplace – which can skew results. The personalised nature of HR data, however, means it is often the catalyst for discovering major procedural or recruitment problems. And when qualitative data is linked to and underpins quantitative financial data, meanwhile, the increased context means ambiguity is removed.
- Topic:
- Finance
Not-for-profit and charitable organisations in the UK have faced an insurmountable number of challenges in the last 16-months – facing an estimated £10 billion loss at the close of 2020. Despite many being used to operating on a shoe-string, Covid-19 brought about changes that affected the sector like never before.
While many have continued to lose revenue through a lack of available support, there are a number of organisations that have adapted and pivoted services in order to keep their charity’s finances afloat. So, how can other charities follow their lead and ensure their funds go further?
- Topic:
- Finance
For finance professionals working in a professional services business, time is often the biggest restraint that stops them from focussing on value added-responsibilities, such as analysing financial data to provide more realistic, more accurate forecasts of how projects impact the business. Or spending time developing key financial policies that can influence other teams across the business to be more cash conscious, which could help to reduce ongoing project costs.
- Topic:
- Finance
Maintaining a healthy cash flow has long been a challenge for care homes. Heightened by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the balancing act required by finance teams in small care groups has only been made more difficult.
- Topic:
- Finance
SMEs are nothing if not resilient, and it seems that in spite of the challenges they’ve faced recently (or perhaps because of them), they’re not just open for business but have their sights set on growth too. According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), expansion is now on the cards for more than half (53%) – and to realise their plans, they’ll need to build their teams.
But finding people with the right skills can be difficult for SMEs, who don’t have the big budgets to compete with larger firms on salaries and benefits, nor the resources to invest in high-level recruitment methods. In fact, staff and skills shortages were cited as the biggest challenge for 27% of 1,000 finance professionals we polled for our recent report, Financial healthcheck: Alleviating your pain points in 2021.
The reason for this concern is clear: finance, like any other team, cannot support the business to grow unless they have talented people. But while salaries and other benefits are important, there are other steps SMEs can take to make their workplaces more attractive.
- Topic:
- Finance
The UK’s e-commerce sector is one of the most vibrant and developed in the world and, not surprisingly, many online retailers saw dramatic growth during the pandemic. Government figures reveal that online sales reached an all-time high in November 2020, when they accounted for 36.4% of retail sales in the UK, before peaking again in January when the country was in lockdown.
- Topic:
- Finance
The opportunities for how businesses can change the way they work have been there for some time now. This change has been brought about largely by the proliferation of technology, which is creating new possibilities for businesses, and evolving attitudes, as many businesses priorities have shifted to the likes of wellbeing and employee engagement or challenging long-established business models to improve efficiencies.
- Topic:
- Finance
The last year has been financially tough for most organisations, and those operating in the Not For Profit (NFP) sector are certainly no exception.
- Topic:
- Finance
How tightly does your business monitor every cost, every expenditure, every charge, every business expense? With the right tools in place, it’s easy to keep a close eye on everything and to spot problems quickly – you can also get a much clearer view on the bigger picture too. That’s the ideal – but for many businesses, it’s not so clear cut. In this article we explore the areas where money is potentially being lost.
- Topic:
- Finance
For many companies, staff expenses aren’t a material cost and don’t cause a problem at end-of-year but for others, especially where they have a large number of field service engineers or sales reps, out of pocket expenses are definitely material.
The problem is that in these cases getting things right is really important and, without a good expenses system, this can actually take a lot of time and effort.
In this article, we’re looking at five issues that staff expenses can cause for financial accounting and some solutions that will help.
- Topic:
- Finance
