Updated 01 February 2023
Are planning for growth by introducing acquisition into your business strategy? Give your team and your business the very best chance of success by laying the foundations with thorough and extensive preparation. Before you begin engaging in the business beauty parade, first on the list is to define your acquisition strategy. Use our 3-step plan below to get your team pulling together in the same direction from the outset. With focus and clarity first, followed of course by due diligence, hopefully you will secure a successful purchase in the coming months.
- Topic:
- Finance
If there’s one subject that is destined to cause confusion in the expenses world it’s mileage claims. With the UK slowly returning to something approaching normality with the lifting of lockdown, now is the right time to make sure you get on top of it with our key tips below.
- Topic:
- Finance
Thank goodness the days when business finance was conducted using handwritten ledgers and impressive mental arithmetic have long since passed. Now, having the skills to use technology effectively is an integral part of the modern Chief Financial Officer (CFO) role. But with so many options available, which solutions provide the most practical benefits? In this article, we summarise the software tools which are of most use to the modern CFO, as well as the latest technology trends to look out for.
Whilst it’s clear that technology can make Finance more efficient, streamlined, accurate and strategic – it is important to ensure that solutions are chosen for the right reasons, rather than simply opting for tech for its own sake. Modern software tools can (and do) make life easier for CFOs and their finance team in a variety of ways, and it makes sense to periodically review what is in place and check that it is delivering the expected benefits.
- Topic:
- Finance
Expense management can be the bane of finance team members’ lives. But there are lots of reasons why expenses need to be well-managed: from saved time to the reduced risk of fraud, staying on top of the many expense claims that come flowing in and out of a finance team has lots of benefits.
As a finance leader, it's important to consider the impact of your expenses process on your team and on your organisation on a regular basis. Failure to do so can lead to creeping problems, from a rising workload for your team and a bloated headcount, to problems with fraud and increased costs.
As seen in our recent UK finance survey, more than one in ten finance professionals still consider expenses to be the most inefficient function of their finance department, highlighting the need for further focus on modernisation.
- Topic:
- Finance
HMRC’s new VAT domestic reverse charge for the building and construction sector came into effect on 1 March 2021. It’s one of many changes in legislation that construction firms are faced with in the first two quarters of this year alone (IR35 and MTD to name two others).
In simple terms, the new process means VAT registered subcontractors who provide a service and any related goods to a VAT-registered contractor who is CIS (Construction Industry Scheme) registered, no longer need to account for VAT.
Instead, the contractor accounts for the VAT as an input tax - as if they’ve made the supply to themselves. In practice, this means in a chain of contractors and subcontractors working on a project, the only business to include VAT to their invoicing is the main contractor - ultimately who invoices the end-user. The reverse charge doesn’t apply however to the buying and selling of construction services that are zero-rated.
- Topic:
- Finance
Economic growth is not a phrase that has been bandied around much over the past year. In fact, the stark reality is that the pandemic resulted in the UK economy shrinking by an unprecedented 9.9 per cent in 2020.
However, future forecasts are looking more favourable, with the Office for Budget Responsibility saying that economic growth will accelerate in 2022 at the fastest rate since records began, rebounding by 7.3 per cent. With growth on the horizon, now is the time for finance leaders to get ahead of the game to ensure their businesses are in the best possible position to capitalise on the predicted upturn.
While growth plans will differ depending on industry and individual circumstances, there are certainly three key elements that finance leaders should be factoring into their thinking as they look ahead.
- Topic:
- Finance
Bring up the subject of intercompany accounting and you’re unlikely to be met with an enthusiastic response. This is one area of finance that has a long-standing reputation for being a burden and regularly causes group finance department headaches. What is interesting is that much of the negativity is unwarranted when a large proportion of intercompany accounting problems can be easily resolved with software. Read on to find out how the latest software can reduce the stress of intercompany accounting and much of the hard work that goes with it.
- Topic:
- Finance
The pandemic has, in many ways, acted as a digital catalyst – from giving businesses the confidence to work remotely, to investing in cutting edge automated software to streamline workflows. The last 12-months have proved just how agile businesses must be, and technology has enabled us to adapt quickly to the changing landscape.
- Topic:
- Finance
I’m a big believer in there being nothing as valuable as real-life experience and some of the most useful skills I have picked up haven’t been as a result of training, but have been a by-product of being on a project team.
One of the first projects I ever led was implementing an expenses system and I learned lessons that I still use today, many of which apply whatever type of project you are involved in.
- Topic:
- Finance
We recently conducted a survey of 1,000 finance professionals in UK businesses, including CFOs, finance directors and managers, to understand their pain points for 2021 and what technology they are considering investing in to resolve their main challenges.
64 per cent of our respondents said they expect their business to adopt new technologies this year, with 24 per cent suggesting cloud accounting software was likely to be the technology they invest in.
Below are four of the top reasons why cloud accounting software is at the forefront of their minds for almost one in four finance teams:
- Topic:
- Finance
