Managing your company expenses policy is more than just writing down a few rules and processing some payments, it’s much more involved than that. As anyone who has managed staff expenses can attest, understanding the human side of expenses is just as important as knowing what the rules are.
- Topic:
- Finance
All lines between what is normal and what’s not seemed to have blurred in 2020. Whilst there had been a considerable rise in remote working in the past, the lockdown forced the business world to take a crash course in making remote working possible without much warning. Except for a specific set of occupations, which require incumbents to be physically present, the pandemic has taught the world that remote working is not only possible, but that it has many benefits for workers and businesses alike.
With all of these changes, it's crucial to ensure your expense system can give you the visibility on new expense patterns and can embrace, not restrict remote working.
- Topic:
- Finance
Before Covid-19 struck, nobody had dreamed of the turn that life would take during the pandemic. Remote-working was a rare nice-to-have and not what anyone would have considered “the new normal”. Of course, there are key workers who do not have the luxury of working from home, but a vast majority of the workforce does not fall into that category.
- Topic:
- Finance
When I joined XYZ Plastics there was only four of us sitting in the accounts department. I say ‘sitting’ because although he had the best desk by the window, ‘Snoozy Keith’ spent most of his time staring across the fields outside and doing no work. Nobody knows what he was looking at and as he did no work whilst he was here nobody knew what his job was. But we paid him nonetheless and he sat there staring until one day they built an Aldi on the fields and he handed in his notice.
- Topic:
- Finance
There is plenty for care sector finance managers to contend with at the moment – from fluctuating service user numbers and staffing levels to inconsistent revenue streams which make cashflow difficult to predict.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created some additional challenges too. Ultimately all of these pressing problems need solutions – and the latest technology offers some useful and effective ways to help finance managers alleviate their day-to-day stresses and make their teams more efficient and productive. It’s also not as complex or expensive as you might think…
- Topic:
- Finance
Automating some financial processes has long been a goal in business, and today it’s essential if you want to keep up with the competition – but just what is it that makes it so invaluable? What can it bring to your business that you don’t already have? When you take the leap and introduce financial automation software into your workplace, you’ll start seeing the benefits straight away – including the following:
- Topic:
- Finance
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), one in three businesses in the UK are seeing operating costs equal to or greater than their total turnover. For CFOs and finance teams, this means that they need to introduce a long-term, sustainable strategy to reduce spending so the business can make savings to protect assets or to boost growth.
Plans to lower operating costs can be built into forecasts and budgeting but I would argue that a cost-conscious culture should extend way beyond the finance team and become common throughout the entire business.
The latest figures from the ONS come from an assessment of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, companies in the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors have suffered the most, with 42 per cent of firms in those areas saying operating costs were higher than turnover, followed by accommodation and food services at 29 per cent.
Of course, we all know that 2020 has seen unprecedented trading conditions and, sadly, a large proportion of firms have taken significant financial hits. However, even for those who have seen relatively little impact, the economic recovery period is the ideal time to review what more can be done to strike that critical balance between the amount spent to keep a business running and the amount it turns over.
- Topic:
- Finance
Introducing financial automation software to your business requires a big adjustment, but it’s a change that you’re highly unlikely to regret. It makes it much easier to integrate your systems and improve performance right across your organisation. These are just five of the ways that it could benefit you.
- Topic:
- Finance
We all know how useful an automated expenses system is but saving time on carrying out manual tasks does have its drawbacks…
You’ll need to find other things for your people to do rather than wade through a sea of receipts and incorrectly added up claims.
Here’s 9 of our best tips but maybe you have your own pet projects you’d like to assign people to once you have saved all of that time?
- Topic:
- Finance
