The top five reasons to migrate
Over the years, we’ve talked with many customers that made the decision to come over to Sage Intacct. Through that process, five themes emerged as key drivers to move to the cloud. Let’s take a closer look at what they are.
1. You’re doing too much of your reporting in excel. Let’s start off by saying that the reporting that comes with Sage 50cloud is great at doing what it is designed to do. Financial statements and reports based on the chart of accounts? No problem. However, as the customers we spoke to developed a need for more complex reporting, they outpaced what Sage 50cloud provides. Additionally, they were unable to ‘slice and dice’ their data in the ways they needed, because they lacked dimensions and calculated fields.
Key sign: A significant amount of your reporting happens in Excel.
2. Your multi-entity consolidations take hours to days. Developed as an on-premises solution, Sage 50cloud wasn’t built to handle the needs of organisations that often have multiple business entities. Customers mentioned that starting up a new entity often felt like a new implementation. Customisations had to be reconfigured, the chart of accounts had to be rebuilt, and all the entities were siloed off from each other.
Key sign: Your closing of books takes several days and you have more than two entities.
3. You need to access your system remotely. Numerous customers touched upon the flexibility of being able to work anywhere, anytime, as a big advantage when migrating to Sage Intacct. Previously, they only had two choices; work from the office or set up a remote-access server. The former often led to long hours and weekends away from their families, while the latter meant investing in the infrastructure and additional IT headcount to keep it up and running. As an on-premises solution in Sage 50cloud, as the number of users and transaction volumes grew, the performance of the solution began to decline.
Key Sign: You’re forced to be in the office to work, your system has slowed to a crawl, or you’re not on the most current version.
4. Your integrations have been replaced by manual workarounds. A lot of small to medium-sized businesses aren’t looking to replace all of their business-critical solutions with an all-in-one suite. And, as is often the case, industries have specific needs that are only met by those best-of-breed vendors. When those systems aren’t able to communicate, integrations are replaced by manual workarounds.
Key Sign: Manual workarounds have taken the place of integrations.
5. You have unscalable, error-prone manual processes. It’s really easy for inefficient processes that work when you’re just starting out to gradually become ‘standard operating procedure’ even though they are unable to scale, often requiring you to hire additional headcount as your business grows. Without automation for processes like PO approvals, invoice generation, payment processing, and currency conversions, it’s easy to lose days of productivity to manual processes. These manual processes ultimately impacted their ability to grow efficiently.
Key Sign: Manual processes have become standard operating procedure.
This is a guest blog from X3 Consulting. They are exhibiting at Accountex Summit North 2021 on stand J10.
4 ways to find out whether your project qualifies for R&D tax credit
Often businesses are unaware that the projects they are working on qualify as R&D and thus allows them to claim R&D tax credits. They might be too preoccupied with the actual running of a business to investigate. They might not even be aware of the opportunity to claim R&D tax credits on their projects.
It’s therefore especially important for SMEs to know what projects they can claim for, as they will benefit the most from the financial boons.
(headline in bold) What qualifies a project as R&D (headline in bold)
To break it down, your client should consider if they can answer the following four questions. This will help them figure out if a project qualifies for R&D tax credits. If the project achieves any of the following, it can qualify as R&D.
1. Does the project overcome uncertainty?
Uncertainty exists when an expert in the relevant field doesn’t know how something gets done, or if it is even possible. All available evidence should be on hand when deciding if there is uncertainty. It will help to get experts from within the company to review whether there was uncertainty or not. It is also possible to enlist the judgement of external experts. However, those that have worked on the project themselves will be most knowledgeable.
In overcoming this uncertainty, your client’s project will be on the frontline of technology within the field. Furthermore, the existence of uncertainty shows your client’s company has forged wholly original ideas and methods in the project.
2. Has it sought a scientific or technological advance?
The purpose of the project must be to benefit the field as a whole, not only your client’s business. In other words, every business within your client’s industry should be able to utilise the advancement their project will result in. For example, developments in food technology resulting in vegan alternatives that are easier to produce. This will lead to lower production costs, allowing food companies to reduce prices for consumers.
What if a service, product or process gets developed by another company? It can still be an advance even if it is not publicly available or known about.
3. Can your project show research, testing and analysis have taken place?
This is the equivalent of showing your working in a math question. Your client should be able to prove their project has undergone changes and overcome obstacles. The trial and error of researching, testing and analysing shows the difficulty of the work. It also justifies the importance of the project.
This is an essential aspect of the technical narrative, which is a crucial part of the R&D tax credit application. Therefore, it’s worth considering at an early stage if your client has the necessary project data to support their claim. Detailing the inner workings of the project will also help show how your client overcame the uncertainty in their project.
4. Could another professional in the field conduct this work?
The answer here should be no, as it shows your client’s advance is covering new ground. Keep in mind your client will have their own professionals working on the project. They will be able to explain the difficulties and uncertainties they face. Otherwise, finding previous unsuccessful attempts at finding a solution will provide an answer.
Unsuccessful projects or projects currently in progress can still qualify for R&D tax credit claims, so don’t dismiss these out of hand.
This is a guest blog from made.simplr. They are exhibiting at Accountex Summit North 2021 on stand H12.
How technology supports, not replaces, accountants
The accountancy profession is going through a period of transition due to the adoption of digital technologies. Accelerated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the adoption of technology has increased at a rate that no one could have predicted.
71%¹ of businesses are more dependent on technology. 68%² of businesses believe digital technologies are benefiting the delivery of services. It is important to understand how digital technologies are aiding professions and not making them obsolete. Embracing digital technologies can enhance roles and transition their value.
The accounting profession's adoption of technology moves slower than the average profession. Finance and accounting teams still spend as much as 80%³ of their day on manual data gathering, data inputting and admin tasks. Tasks, according to McKinsey⁴, could be automated using digital technologies. McKinsey found that digital technologies can automate “general accounting tasks”. Whereas “business development tasks” needed an accountant's knowledge and expertise.
Such stats reveal how digital technologies can aid accountants. Leaving more time to spend on tasks that technologies cannot replace. This is where accountants need to realise how digital technologies can transition their roles. Roles that no longer require admin and manual input. But roles that focus on business development, financial advice and business insights.
Digital technology use may appear daunting for the accountants who spend 80% of their time on manual tasks and traditional processes. But digital technologies exist to aid. From automation and AI technologies, to digital service delivery and data analytic tools. Automation technologies can replace data inputting and manual admin tasks. Digital service delivery can expand an accountant’s base and connect customers easier than ever before. And utilising data analytic tools will enhance the profession's role to that of a business adviser.
Reducing manual tasks with digital technologies, provides accountants the space to be strategic with their customers and to ultimately help their business grow.
The change in accountant's roles will only enhance the profession. So much so that The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 10%⁵ growth (faster than average) for accountants and auditors from 2016-2026. Accountants need to show their customers that their role is changing. That the adoption of digital technologies allows the accountant's role to be even more valuable. Embrace technology and be more relevant for your customers than ever before.
Sources:
¹ and ² https://www.techuk.org/resource/survey-results-lockdown-and-changing-attitudes-towards-tech.html
³ https://www.adaptiveinsights.com/sites/default/files/assets/Adaptive-Insights-CFO-Indicator-full-steam-ahead-automation.pdf
⁴ https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/bots-algorithms-and-the-future-of-the-finance-function
⁵ https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-and-auditors.htm
This is a guest blog from Unifiedpost Group. They are exhibiting at Accountex Summit North 2021 on stand J16.
Improve your analytics and forecasting with verified actionable data
Every business needs an insight into its current position and an understanding of what’s coming in the future. With Xero launching its new Xero Analytics Plus tool, cash flow prediction becomes a much simpler task.
The importance of data for insights and forecasting
Of course, whichever tool you’re using, the key to accurate reporting and forecasting is high-quality data – structured, verified and enriched with business context. An absolute must for making informed business decisions. Financial performance indicators can go far beyond what traditional accounting can do, they actually give an outlook on the business as a whole. The main focus here is understanding the company’s financial health as well as finding effective ways to move the business forward.
So, for quality insights and forecasting all expenses have to be coded properly in the accounting system. This builds a reliable basis for cash flow forecasting, cost projections, expenditure structure and much more.
A well-established granular authorisation system adds greatly to data quality; its setup includes various expense authorisation levels, custom authorisation criteria, rules for authorisation delegation and fraud monitoring procedures. A clearly defined authorisation process enables accounting practices to share accountability with the client, create the base for accurate financial projections and advise clients on their financial performance.
Validating data in ApprovalMax
When bills enter ApprovalMax, they first get reviewed and coded. In this step, the accounts and tracking categories are checked to confirm that the spend allocation is correct. It’s also possible to match bills and corresponding purchase orders in ApprovalMax, which includes copying certain information such as the bill's coding from the original purchase order.
After this initial control, usually performed by the practice, bills are routed through the defined approval workflow on the client side. ApprovalMax runs a fully automated multi-step and multi-role authorisation process, which is based on one or several criteria pulled from the accounting system (supplier, amount, GL code, tracking category, etc.). The highly flexible approval matrix can easily be extended to suit growing businesses with increasingly complex spend tracking patterns and progressively more approval criteria that need to be taken into account. ApprovalMax reflects the delegated authority for the business and enforces internal controls.
Completing the ApprovalMax review and approval process ensures that only authorised and properly coded bills enter Xero to provide a reliable basis for accurate reporting and forecasting.
This is a guest blog from ApprovalMax. They are exhibiting at Accountex Summit North 2021 on stand B11.