Tag: Accounting Software

January 22, 2020 Uncategorized

Start Your Year Off In The Performance Zone

Getting back into work after a break can be hard.

You might be struggling to get back into your routine and engage your brain in work. Or, perhaps you spent time setting your goals and planning your year and you’re full speed raring to go. There is however, an optimum approach somewhere between these two scenarios – we call this hitting the ‘Performance Zone’.

The ‘Performance Zone’ sits between the ‘Comfort Zone’ and the ‘Danger Zone’.

It’s easy to hang out in your Comfort Zone. We just keep doing what we’ve always done because so far it’s worked… and there’s no motivation to change. However, sitting comfortable in times of such rapid change can leave you exposed. Your competitors, those working in the Performance Zone, setting goals and making incremental changes and improvements, could squeeze you out.

Working in The Performance Zone enables you to break bad habits and form good ones, achieve your goals and improve the value of your business. When working in your Performance Zone, you’ll be engaged in your work and adopt new learnings, processes and technology to streamline your business and make it more efficient.

Be wary of putting the full throttle down though. If you stretch too far out of your Comfort Zone, past the Performance Zone, you may find yourself in the Danger Zone. Committing to a massive amount of change all at once can lead to volatility, burnout, mistakes resulting re-work, the loss of a key team member and cause you to work even longer hours for no gain (apart from stress gain).

The aim is to set goals and implement changes to move beyond your Comfort Zone into your Performance Zone. If you do find yourself hitting the Danger Zone, it’s ok. Retreat back into your Performance Zone… not back to your Comfort Zone. You’re here to improve your business performance, that won’t happen from your Comfort Zone.

This concept applies to your entire team.

Motivate them to work in their Performance Zone instead of their Comfort Zone but have processes in place to prevent their burn out. If you notice someone coming in early, staying late and visibly stressed, find out why. Speak to them about the Performance Zone and offer support to help them manage their workload, prioritise work and reduce their stress levels.

Want help reaching your Performance Zone? Get in touch to find out how we can help!

August 28, 2019 Bookkeeping, Uncategorized

Automation can ease your business workload

Small and medium-sized businesses are spending on average 120 hours a year on admin tasks, according to recent research into productivity at UK SMBs.

If your people are spending 120 hours wading through tedious and unproductive admin, that’s bad for the business and for your overall efficiency. Fortunately, technology and software automation can go a long way towards automating the low-level admin tasks.

Better productivity through automation

Automation is an important way to ease your business workload, with a host of different business apps and cloud solutions offering ways to automate your admin.

With ‘smart business tools’ increasing in number and choice, software is utilising automation algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and cognitive solutions to help remove the mundane admin tasks from your workflows.

Core processes that will benefit from automation include:

  • Automated bookkeeping – Just take a photo of your receipts, expenses and invoices and ‘optical character recognition’ (OCR) technology will digitise the output and pull it through into your accounts software. No data entry, no human error and no lost receipts! We can do the rest to ensure your records are accurate.
  • Automated credit control – chasing up debts and late-paying customers takes time. Automated credit control apps track your debtor numbers and automatically sends out customised chaser emails as soon as an invoice is late. This reduces your credit control time, speeds up cash collection and cuts your aged debtor figure.
  • Automated payment collection – the easier it is to pay you, the faster your customers will pay. Automated card payments and cloud-based Direct Debit solutions allow you to automatically take payment from a customer as soon as an invoice is due. Some solutions will even automate the invoice matching and bank reconciliation process.
  • Automated reporting and forecasting – the better your reporting and business intelligence, the easier it is to make informed decisions about your company strategy. Accounting platforms and fintech (ie. financial technology) tools now offer automatic, real-time reporting and forecasting, giving you access to the important numbers and metrics, fast.
  • Automated digital marketing – digital marketing is key to raising your brand’s profile. Marketing platforms offer important time-saving ways to schedule and post social media content, or email automation that sends a pre-programmed cadence of emails to specific target audiences within your wider customer base.

Talk to us about embracing the power of automation

If your admin is starting to hold you back, come and talk to us about how automation can pick up some of the heavy lifting as well as giving you the metrics you need for decision making. We can review you business processes and identify the automation opportunities, helping you choose the best apps to drive your business efficiently.

June 22, 2018 Software

How safe is cloud based accounting software?

Undoubtedly, cloud based accounting is the way forward.  Switching your account keeping software to the cloud, not only saves your business a tremendous amount of valuable time, but also increases accuracy and gives you access to real-time data on any device.

But many cautious business owners ask “how safe is cloud software?”.  And let’s be honest, in a time when we are so often hearing about credit cards being hacked, personal details being stolen and used in fraudulent ways, why wouldn’t we be concerned?  It is definitely a question we should be asking, especially when we are placing our business finances and documents within these systems, we want to be sure that we are the only ones who are able to access it. So, how safe is cloud-based accounting software?

As with any system, proper precautions must be taken.  Software that is being hosted locally can just as easily be hacked as cloud based software, the security issues are the same. There are currently multiple layers of security with cloud based software and The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is introducing a new operational framework for software developers and for accountants and bookkeepers who use software to interact with the ATO.  This new framework requires accountants and bookkeepers to use multifactor authentication when they login. This means anyone working with Australian taxpayer information needs to have 2 step authentication implemented in their cloud based software by the end of March 2018 to comply.

Whilst software companies like Xero and MYOB have many layers of security to protect our business, this latest ATO requirement gives another level of added security protecting Australian Businesses.

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