Best practice guides, research and insights for finance leaders
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2023 Trends and Financial Practices for Charities and Not-for-profits: Navigating a Rapidly Changing Landscape
In today's rapidly changing world, not for profit organisations face a variety of challenges that can impact their financial stability and long-term success. This blog article will provide insights and analysis on the latest trends and financial practices relevant to not-for-profit organisations.
Challenges and priorities impacting Professional Services in 2023
The Professional Services sector has been through an intense period of rapid adjustment. A recent survey of ours discovered how firms have adapted and moved forwards since the pandemic. Take a look through the findings of the survey as it may provide ideas and inspiration for your organisation.
How to implement a new accounting system –checklist and guide
Up to date systems can speed up your finance processes and increase efficiency. A new accounting system can also deliver better reporting, more timely information and drive value through insight.
Choosing your new finance system
Choosing your new finance system can be a stressful experience, after all, it is a significant change and one that you want to get right but if you are new to the world of project management where do you start?
Switching Accounting Software: What to Expect with Access Finance
Switching accounting software is something many people are very wary about, possibly due to experiences they had many years ago but we’re here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be a drama.
Boosting finance and operational performance in the recruitment sector
Having a slick operation is paramount to running a recruitment agency that keeps your clients, candidates and consultants happy. This hub is packed with resources designed to help Recruitment Agency Owners and Finance Directors looking to improve their finance and operational performance.
How to choose the right accounting software for your business
Using the right accounting software can be a game-changer. Learn what good accounting software looks like and how to choose the right solution for your business.
Help to grow: planting the seeds to scale your organisation
A resource hub for finance and business leaders looking to take their organisation to the next level. In any sector, a lot has changed recently, and businesses have been affected one way or another by the pandemic. This resource hub is packed of content designed to help organisations assess their business and finance strategy to adapt and grow into today's ever-changing world.
Finance transformation in the not-for-profit sector
In Not-for-profit organisations, finance teams need to ensure that every pound raised is spent wisely. But without the right tools in place, organisations are at risk of haemorrhaging funds through bad decision-making which is often due to a lack of information. This hub explores how driving finance transformation for your NFP with the right technology can give you the freedom to make a difference.
Pain points for finance professionals in 2021
Uncovering the challenges and obstacles facing finance teams in 2021. Download the report to see the results of our survey of over 1000 UK finance professionals.
Reshaping your strategy: How HR and Finance can work together to create a winning strategy
The game is on! The daily cut and thrust of running a project-based business has many similarities with strategy style games. The weight and impact of decisions, the risks and rewards, and the thrill of achieving a goal when the whole team pulls together: it’s all part of the game.
The importance of integrated data in the care world
Finance professionals of care companies often find themselves needing to maximise profits and cut costs wherever possible, but problems with data collection mean that it is hard to know where to start.
Automating and integrating your finance processes
Automating your finance process can make the difference between success and failure in your company’s operations. We explore the key things to consider when looking at automation and integration for your business.
Building Momentum: How to help fuel business recovery A guide for finance leaders
As the world emerges from enforced hibernation, business leaders will need to pour all their energy into recovery. Not surprisingly, finance is going to play a leading role in formulating and delivering new strategies that determine the direction of travel.
Designed to help finance leaders make sense of recent events and spot opportunities to build momentum that will fuel the recovery.
Financial Digital Transformation and remote working
Transformation in the digital world is a key driver of progress for businesses in all sectors. This paper provides an executive overview of how emerging technology is set to impact the finance function within every organisation, including how individual processes could be affected, how remote working can be leveraged, and how change can enable finance professionals to add more value in their organisation.
The Strategic CFO: myth or reality?
As business environments change and converge, the acceleration can seem overwhelming. But organisations must evolve – and so must the finance professional too. In this report we look at some of the key problems that are holding CFOs and finance directors back, and what they can do to become more strategic.
Finance transformation in the care sector
Change is happening across the care sector as providers seek new ways to deal with their ongoing challenges, as well as addressing the additional pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever before, senior managers need to achieve more with less. This guide includes: Why moving finance to the cloud makes sense for care providers, the benefits of integrated finance transformation in the care world, and a 5 point action plan for care organisations to adopt finance transformation.
Project Management: Project costing concepts
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this first video of our project management series, Access Head of Professional Services, Chris Jewell, talks about the concepts of project costing.
Project Management: Project Initiation Process
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this second video of our project management series, Access Head of Professional Services, Chris Jewell, covers the project initiation process - from the creation process to uploads of project information.
Project Management: Managing your projects within a finance system
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this third video of our project management series, Access Head of Professional Services, Chris Jewell, provides tips and best practice around managing projects inside a finance system. Covering: budgeting, allocations, purchase requests, data upload, timesheets and expenses.
Everything you need to know about automating your finance and accounting process
Automation is becoming exponentially more popular in business as time goes on. It not only allows companies to work more effectively and produce data of superior quality, but it also enables them to work much faster. Automating your finances and accounting process can make the difference between success and failure in your company’s operations. This guide explores the key things to consider when looking at automation and integration for your business.
Running month-end and year-end
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this video Phil Walters, Customer Success Manager at Access, gives key tips about what to consider when preparing for financial month-end and year-end.
Improving User Engagement During the Project Lifecycle
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this video Phil Walters, Customer Success Manager at Access, gives key tips about how to improve user engagement when implementing a new project.
Ensuring user adoption after project go-live
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
Key tips about how to ensure user adoption after a project goes live from Phil Walters, Customer Success Manager at Access.
Challenges faced by growing and evolving businesses
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this video, Steve Berridge, Consultant and Director at Access, explores the typical challenges businesses face when they grow and evolve - from people to technology, processes and culture.
Systems that don't talk
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this video, Steve Berridge, Consultant and Director at Access, explores a typical challenge businesses face when they grow and evolve: systems that don't talk to each other.
The dreaded spreadsheet - the pitfalls to avoid
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
This video explores the pitfalls to avoid for businesses and finance teams with the use of spreadsheets, and the challenge of reconciling data for accurate reporting.
Solid operational processes - one version of the truth
Tips and Best Practice for finance teams
In this video, Steve Berridge, Consultant and Director at Access, explores what solid operational processes should look like for a business and the finance team to allow one version of the truth and informed decision-making.
Tackle the impact of Covid-19 on your finance team and business and prepare for recovery
The webinar series covers various challenges currently faced by finance professionals including the impact Covid-19 is having on Expense policies, PAYE/NIC and VAT, as well as cash flow and credit control, and also looks at what the future of finance may look like after the pandemic.
From cars to financial software: Why you need the latest models in the modern world
Knowing when it’s time to move on can be tricky, whether you’re looking at cars, mobile phones or your financial software system. But you run a much greater risk sticking with old models than embracing new ones. As a company grows in size, it will begin to require much more from its software system to remain successful and efficient. It’s important to know and accept when the time comes for a change, not only to avoid the waste of time and resources but also to improve the business.
Covid-19 in Business: A Guide for Finance Department Leaders
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected businesses in countless unforeseen ways and looks set to continue to do so for a considerable time. This guide looks at the impact specifically on the Finance function, identifying the various underlying factors which have put some companies at a disadvantage, the actions required, the lessons learned, plus future considerations for the mid- and long-term.
Financial close schedules for year-end
Smooth and automate your month and year-end accounting processes. Explore a set of resources to support your finance team with the end of period and end of year preparation work.
IR35 is changing the tax landscape - but how will it affect finance and HR?
The arrival of IR35 has had a significant effect on the public sector, and it’s changing the way that many organisations operate. For finance leaders with a range of responsibilities including financial strategy, compliance and more, it’s important to get answers to questions about how to most efficiently manage this new regulation and ensure that compliance requirements are met.
Scaling your business: How to grow efficiently and smartly - a guide for finance leaders
Any business looking to achieve realistic, sustainable growth must first consider sources of additional investment, capital costs and the implications for staffing and logistics. This must-read guide explains how to design a model that allows scalability and growth for your business.
5 point plan as a new finance professional
Taking office as a senior finance professional isn’t always easy. There will be plenty of items on the agenda you’ll need to address in order to get settled in, such as working out the culture and checking to see how prepared your predecessor was for major tasks.
Here’s a guide to getting it right.
A guide to creating predictability in an uncertain world
These days, just one look at the news headlines can quickly create fear in the hearts of even the most savvy finance leader.
This guide will walk you through exactly what a finance leader should be looking out for in an age of question marks and uncertainty.
What are the key pains that finance directors face when starting a new job?
This guide to help finance directors make an impact in their new role. From working out how to overcome the burden of administration that is often placed on them to ensuring that they can find the right talent for the jobs they have and spreading the workload efficiently, there are lots of challenges to think about.
The key signs it's time to change your business strategy: a guide for finance leaders
This guide will look at three of the major signs of poor strategy and explain how a modern, data-fuelled approach to strategic decision-making can make a world of difference to a finance leader’s life.
Emerging threats and trends in cyber security
Technological developments provide all kinds of benefits, but they also come with exploitable loopholes that hackers consider ripe for the picking – and the obligation is on you as a finance leader to prevent this from happening.
This guide will explain what some of the main threats and trends are in the cyber security field – and why becoming increasingly secure is a good way to go.
Managing financial problems in the hospitality sector
Britain’s hospitality sector is huge: its total value was widely expected to surpass £100bn last year, while it’s estimated that one in every ten people work in either this industry or in the related sector of tourism.
Therefore, it’s important to consider the common financial issues in this sector and how to best manage them. From cash flow issues to uncertain staffing arrangements, there are all sorts of issues that a finance leader in this industry might have to deal with.
HR and Finance - The Power Partnership
Your guide to enabling business-wide connected working Whether you work in HR or finance, it’s important to always think strategically and cleverly about your business decisions, but how can this be achieved in an ever-changing business context?
Read the guide to find out how connected working, accurate shared data and collaboration benefit HR, Finance and contributes to the business-wide performance.
How integrated technology can help grow your business
In today’s internet-focused and screen-driven world, technology is a key driver of progress for businesses in all sectors. By marrying up the benefits of integrated, collaborative technology with the strategic aim of growth, it’s possible to transform a rudderless business into a focused, sustainable and profitable firm instead.
This guide will help open your eyes to the benefits of integrated technology and explain the ways in which it can impact your business’ growth plans in a positive and sustainable manner.
Making Tax Digital Beyond compliance: the opportunity for UK business
Making Tax Digital (MTD) is a new system from HMRC that will transform the current UK tax system, making it fully automated, digital and online based. In this whitepaper, we’ll dive into some of the opportunities available and what they mean for business.
Making Tax Digital - Cloud and On-premise Accounting Systems
How to select the software that works for you. With Making Tax Digital, it’s necessary to reassess your current accounting software – particularly as MTD was mandatory since April 2019 for those businesses above the VAT threshold.
The question is, do you go down the cloud or on-premise route?
Making Tax Digital - 7 signs you've outgrown your accounting system
The thought of changing your accounting software can be overwhelming. You want to maintain simplicity but also handle the complexities that any growing business comes up against.
With the global trend towards digitising finance, there are pressures of compliance that need to be met too. Read the whitepaper to find out the seven signs that it's time to change.
The importance of integrated data in the care world
Finance professionals of care companies often find themselves needing to maximise profits and cut costs wherever possible, but problems with data collection mean that it is hard to know where to start.
This guide will cover: The key pain points finance professionals find in the care world, why an integrated data solution is an absolute must-have for companies in the care industry, why not implementing one could mean lower profits, more difficulties around reporting and worse patient outcomes over the long term.
Financial and accounting solutions for construction professionals
From sub-contractor to prime contractor, time and materials through to design and build, our construction industry-specific solutions will improve your planning, estimating, cost allocation and billing, providing you with the centralised contract information you need to build strong supplier and customer relationships.
8-step guide to choosing & implementing finance software
Our 8 step guide identifies every step today’s FD needs to take in order to make sure the vendor and the software they select is right for their NFP organisation.
The Connected Finance Team
Learn how successful CFOs and finance teams embed finance across their organisation and enhance productivity and maximise profitability by bringing their people, data and technology together.
5 reasons your company should integrate its software
Fast paced, high-growth architectural firms often end up installing disparate software applications over time to cope with various issues as they arise. But, with lots of information stored in individual systems, you effectively lock data into silos, resulting in business process inefficiencies and software integration issues.
Protect and grow your profitability
Learn how the importance of real-time data capture can help you oversee profitability with total confidence - never lose sight of your profit margin again.
Selecting business and finance software
In partnership with BASDA we provide you with this key buying guide - learn how to create a strong and robust selection process and ultimately decide which software and vendor is right for you.
Painless project finance management
Stop having to make do with disconnected data and having to make decisions based on guesswork. See how Access Financials can help projects run smoothly and always have the information you need without hassle.
Transforming expense management in the cloud
Administrative tasks that are supported by paper-based or antiquated systems are both a burden and a drain on your resources. See how Access Expense can be used to address the fundamental inefficiencies of paper and spreadsheet-based systems for managing expenses claims.
How Poor Expense Management pains everyone in your organisation
In this guide, we look at three groups: non-finance staff, line managers and your Finance team. Separate perspectives that express the extent of your expense management problem.
10 must-have traits of the successful mid-market CFO
Brought to you by the providers of Factory Master, Delta and Orchestrate, Access Financials works alongside your existing software to give you a full picture of your performance. By combining a deep understanding of the manufacturing industry with over 20 years’ experience developing finance software, our software is developed with your needs in mind.
Making the case for new accounting software
Faced with failing financial systems, it can be tricky to find both the time and inclination to build a business case. Yet by following this simple methodology, you can significantly enhance the likelihood of investment - and be confident that your new system delivers what it should.
Grow your business without adding back office headcount
How can technology help the CFO and their organisation? The right finance and business software can make all the difference, creating a leaner stronger business without adding back office headcount.
Top 7 tell-tale signs you’ve outgrown your accounting system
Over time, as your business expands, you'll notice your accounts package groaning from the volume of activity. This is made worse if data is held in disparate spreadsheets and systems. Is your financial solution no longer fit for purpose? Here are the seven signs that it’s time to change.
Leading the way in driving positive transformation for your NFP
This guide looks at the steps taken on by Friends of the Elderly, a £28m charity, on their journey to drive positive transformation at their organisation with the right finance technology - how to embark on the process of change, what it took to see the project through to successful completion and the benefits experienced as a result.
The NFP FDs' Atlas - A guide to choosing and implementing the right financial software for your organisation
In this comprehensive guide we take you through a series of steps to make sure you’ve thought about all the important areas of changing vendor and software package as well as the core functionality you should expect from any new supplier.
Why technology is vital for better volunteer absence and expense management
When it comes to managing staff and volunteers, not-for-profit organisations face the same HR issues as the business world – just with more accountability. Funds must be seen to be spent wisely and organisations run efficiently, including the management of expenses and absence.
This whitepaper explains how technology holds the key to helping organisations to manage volunteer absence and expenses more efficiently.
Access Expense Brochure
From real-time expense spend reports to inbuilt policy control, discover the exciting features Access Expense has to offer.
This guide covers: How to weigh up the costs; financial modelling; budgeting for your new software, risk management and creating a project plan
Access Expense Product Tour
Watch an introduction to our easy-to-use staff expenses management software to save time, aid compliance, maximise your VAT rebate and cut costs.
Better management of expense and costs for your NFP
The fight for every £ donated has never been so intense. Download our factsheet to see how Expense provides control and total visibility of spend.
Expense management for public sector organisations
Is your organisation looking to invest in expense management software? If so, take a look at this list of five things to check before you buy.
Accurate P11D reporting and compliance
HMRC expects businesses to report expenses and benefits. The challenge for Finance teams is to ensure they report correctly.
Accurate mileage verification with Access Expense
Guesswork, spreadsheets and re-keying can lead to inaccuracies which can quickly and needlessly erode your bottom line.
Maximising your business VAT reclaims
There's a significant financial benefit in making sure you reclaim all the VAT to which your business is entitled. Software makes this easy.
Expense ROI Calculator
Try out our savings calculator to see what poor expense management is costing your organisation, and how much you could save by using expense management software.
