Audit Preparation
A little preparation goes a LONG way when it comes to audits
Audits and reviews are always pressure and stress points for any finance team in the year. However, they don't have to be the all consuming beasts they sometimes turn in to.
However, a little preparation (focussing on transparency of numbers in the financial report), identification of potential accounting issues and a plan for handling the audit itself can save a huge amount of stress, time and fees!
Management Reporting
Effective reporting is the easiest way to improve your business!
We assist in designing an effective management reporting "stack" covering Board reporting and Management Reporting (from senior management to line managers and supervisors).
The report stack is focussed on combining non financial KPIs with financial information (forecast and actual) so all levels of the business can see what has happened and what needs to be done.
Finance Efficiency
Freeing up time to do something more productive
There are multiple services included in this heading, including:
- Month End shortening : Month ends need to be quick, so that management reporting is in the hands of the management team and managers within a week (at most!). By reviewing bottlenecks (which are usually related to accruals, payroll or reporting) and "tweaking"current processes and spreadsheets, you'll be surprised how much time can be saved!
- Excel Workbook rebuild : Just about everyone will use excel at some point in the month end reporting process. It could be to calculate adjustments, consolidate, prepare cashflows or simply to create/format a report.
Some workbooks take massive amounts of time to update.....in many cases it is faster to rebuild the workbook than it is to try to update an existing one. Check out our Excel Fix services. - Improve your forecasting processes: Forecasts should be useful tools, helping businesses stay focussed on key metrics that matter. However, often the forecasting process proves to be ineffective, leading to difficulties in explaining actual vs forecast variances and a general feeling the forecast is a chore. More details on our Forecast Improvement services can be found here.
Business Intelligence
Reporting is easier when a system does it
Don't be concerned, "business intelligence" systems do not have to be massively expensive, confusing behemoths. Excel Powerview, PowerPivot or just normal pivot tables will do.
There are a number of free business intelligence systems that can be quickly configured to allow you to analyse and report faster.
New Systems Advice
Avoid common system implementation mistakes
A system implementation is a company defining moment. It doesn't matter what size company you have, if you are putting in a new system your processes will change (if they don't, why are you bothering?)
However, it is really important that you, as the client, are very clear on precisely what you want and how your process works. If you aren't clear, the implementation won't go well and there will be major issues when you go live.
Don't be taken in....the consultants implementing the system are specialists in the system they are implementing (hopefully). They are not business process specialists and they mostly haven't had to live day to day with the problems systems cause.
We've "been there, done that" and can help you to avoid the most common and most costly mistakes. More details on our service offering can be found here.
Task Outsourcing
Balance the experience you want with a cost that makes sense
For smaller organisations, there is often a conflict between the level of experience they need and what the business can afford. Often there will be an experienced Financial Controller or CFO supported by a junior accountant, accounts assistant or bookkeeper.
The problem with this arrangement is that the CFO or FC will quite often end up spending time on tasks that don't require their expertise, but are above the expertise of the support team. Typical tasks are GL reviews for errors, completion of reconciliations, provision calculations, initial reviews of management reports etc.
To solve this problem, what the business needs in the expertise of another FC, but only for a couple of days in the month.
Practical Reporting offers Flexi Role services to smaller entities covering tasks ranging from complete transaction processing and management accounts preparation to specific tasks, such as preparation of management accounts.
In most cases, the ongoing monthly fee is comparable to the cost of the existing support (depending on the number of transactions and complexity of the existing process).
As part of the outsourcing service, Practical Reporting generally improves and streamlines the existing processes to provide further benefits to the client.
Check out more details of our Flexi Role offering here.
