Top tips from our CFO about supporting your business during year-end
The end of the financial year is on the horizon, which has many businesses scrambling to ensure the books are balanced and everything is in order before the deadline on 5th April 2020. With Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) cracking down on senior executives in an effort to hold individuals at medium-to-large enterprises to account, it is more important than ever to ensure you are fully prepared for year-end and supporting your company every step of the way. As global markets react to the outbreak of coronavirus, financial uncertainty is in the air and many staff are likely to be working remotely. As such, it is more important than ever for companies to prepare for the upcoming financial year.
With year-end in sight and in light of the above, Access Group Chief Financial Officer Rob Binns explains what you can do to prepare yourself and your finance team for a seamless end to the financial year. With more than 20 years in the technology sector at both public and private firms, Rob has a wealth of financial experience. At Access, he is responsible for all finance, accounting and tax matters. Read on for Rob’s top tips for the end of the financial year 2019–2020, which focus on how you can provide support for your business as you look to the year ahead.
What priorities should finance leaders have at year’s end?
“I would encourage every business to have a close schedule mapping out key dates and deliverables, as each business is going to be a little bit different. If you’re a manufacturing business, for example, at year-end you’ll often have things like a stock take. At Access, we are a software business. Therefore, we don’t have inventory but do have other requirements and expectations. Different businesses will have different priorities around the time of year-end. As a finance leader, it’s incumbent on you to make sure you’ve got a clear understanding of what those priorities are for your organisation, get them documented and then make sure the team is then marching towards delivering them."
“While each organisation has its own unique priorities, I think all finance teams need to be cognisant of the pace of change. As it continues to accelerate, businesses are increasingly looking to respond to changing market conditions and how they can compete and be successful in the markets that they play in. Our role in finance is to help support that. Current events only underscore the importance of this.”
What support can finance leaders provide at the end of the financial year?
“If you’re providing support to other areas of the business, they’re going to be looking at things like getting new quotas out for the fiscal year for the sales people. If finance is playing a business partner support role in key activities like that, you want to make sure that the teams are ready and are supporting the business so that the business can fairly quickly move from one fiscal year to the next.
“So, you’re always trying to strike a bit of a balance between what one has to do from a statutory or corporate governance perspective. This means ensuring you’re completing all relevant activities on the statutory accounts and reporting, but while also ensuring the management team, the board and everyone else is made aware of the financial performance as you close the accounts so they can respond accordingly.”
What are the biggest issues to focus on going into 2020?
“For me, I think the focus has got to be on how you continue to support the business. Whether that concerns Brexit, trade wars, macro trends or even the current concerns – there’s always, at any point in the cycle, challenging macro-environment issues that a company needs to deal with. Every company is out there striving to be successful in delivering its products and services to customers, so how can Finance play a role in supporting that."
“As I think about 2020/21, I’m focusing on: How do we support the business growth that we know we want to strive for in the upcoming year? How do I make what we do as efficient and as effective as possible? How do I get the freedom to do more of the commercial, finance and business partnering support activities that the business is crying out for? If you ask the average CEO, that’s what they want from a finance organisation.”
Find out more
The right finance software can help CFOs to smooth the whole year-end process and make your finance team’s life easier. Right now, as companies work to plan and prepare for the uncertainty of the next few months, it is essential to understand recent government announcements on tax and business relief. In addition, it is especially important to support your financial team much as possible, while also optimising their efficiency. With the likes of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation offering you freedom from certain tasks, you can minimise time spent on repetitive processes and maximise efficiency.
