Article credit: Sage 

The health of your business’s accounting and financial systems plays a big part in your success. While it’s tempting to hire someone to take care of your finances for you or to ignore them altogether until tax season rolls around, managing your money smartly is a non-negotiable when it comes to running a successful business.

While no entrepreneur can be a master of all trades, it’s worth knowing the basics when it comes to your finances.

Here are eight things every new business owner needs to know about accounting:

1. Know your growth number

So, you’ve spent weeks perfecting your business plan, painstakingly highlighting your vision – but have you outlined your financial targets? Even setting a baseline goal of 5% growth per year, for example, can keep you focused and make it easier to measure your growth.

2. Consistency is key

Set aside time every day or week to update your accounts, so you can get into the swing of managing your revenue, costs, and expenses. Having oversight of your finances will help you to make informed decisions and spot any financial red flags before they become serious.

3. Think ahead

Plot your income and expense projections up to the end of the financial year. This will help you to anticipate your future cash flow and makes it easier to adjust your operations in the future.

4. Value your time

Time is money. Entrepreneurs need to master time management because it’s one skill that can’t be outsourced. Keeping your most important vendors and customers happy is possible when you prioritise effectively and take care of the most urgent matters first.

5. Keep a sharp eye on your costs

You need to know your expenses inside and out. Whether they’re essential to your business or are more general (like stationery and printing), knowing where your money is going and being strict with your internal purchasing processes is paramount when it comes to managing your finances.

6. Guard your revenue

Being paid on time (in fact, being paid at all) can be a challenge. When invoicing your clients, be clear about when they can expect an invoice and what your payment terms are. Include these terms on the invoice itself and try to get the client to agree on them beforehand. Some clients might struggle to meet your payment terms; in those cases, you’ll need to compromise. Usually, it’s easier to wait longer for payment than to take legal action.

7. Do your future self a favour

Save yourself a stressful year-end by filing your financial documents every month. By storing your receipts, invoices, and other accounting documents in chronological order, they’ll be easily accessible whenever you need them.

8. Automate as much as possible

There’s no reason not to make the most of the technology available to us within our businesses – especially when it comes to our finances. Use whatever accounting tools and software you can to lighten the load of your workflow, set reminders, and ease the general day-to-day financial responsibilities.

Article credit: Sage 

The phrase ‘digital transformation’ is a perfect example of how the technology sector likes broad-stroke concepts to explain the revolutionary. It’s also an example of how a message can get lost in translation.

Despite being around for several years, the concept still causes confusion and anxiety.

The only certainty it projects is that digital transformation is necessary and that those organisations that don’t transform will eventually die. But being so far down the line, some question if there is still time to change – this notion couldn’t be further from the truth.

It’s never too late. Whether you’re behind the curve, on top of the curve, or leading the curve it’s still relevant. People think digital transformation is this massive word they need to unpack in their business and they’re going to change the entire business. No, digital transformation can be taking a simple concept and automating it.

Digital transformation defined

Digital transformation describes how businesses can leverage digital technologies to become leaner, be more disruptive, and grow faster. But this needn’t be a complicated event. For example, automating mundane tasks in an organisation is an example of digital transformation.

However, it is approached, digital transformation can’t just be tacked onto the business. It introduces new ways of accomplishing tasks and solving problems, which means there will be a cultural shift. It also requires an overarching strategy to ensure transformation gains don’t turn into silos of excellence in a sea of if-it-ain’t-broke attitudes.

What’s very important is that you keep your end goal intact. You must remember the original outcome you wanted from this digital strategy digital journey at the end of the day.

How does automating mundane tasks align with such a far-reaching vision? This is perhaps where most transformation ambitions struggle. But it goes back to the earlier point. These changes are not peripheral improvements but instead tweaks inside the business machinery. They will impact how people do their tasks and what else they can do. Such profound events will cause ripples and demand accommodation if they are to be accepted and successful.

In the past, you were measured on the number of calls you took. But now, companies should measure the digital experience on the platforms that customers are using.

Faster business, faster response = improved customer satisfaction

There is one thing that will happen, regardless of whether you are tweaking mundane tasks or remodeling entire sections of the organisation. The speed of the business – particularly its response to problems – should accelerate. The structure must be able to take advantage of this acceleration.

Examples of this include faster responses to customer queries and thus improved customer satisfaction. It also manifests through a culture of experimentation. It’s worth mentioning that in this new world, you shouldn’t be scared of making a mistake. It’s about how quickly the business can shift direction or momentum on an outcome.

Such a culture and agility is why an overarching strategy is necessary.

You must interlock the technology with the business strategy, and that sits with the CEO. But the rest of the C-suite is as crucial. CIOs must shift away from maintaining technology as an outcome and towards understanding customer satisfaction as an outcome of their work. CFOs must come out of the back office into the front lines of the business, giving support to different stakeholders. There is a role to play at every position.

It doesn’t matter what industry you take. There’s going to be some transformation. You have to sit down and say, ‘What is our end result?’. But you don’t need to take this massive leap. You need to know the big picture – digital transformation can begin almost anywhere and anytime.

It’s not too late to start your digital transformation. Don’t let the revolutionary vibes throw you off. If you have an outcome in view, you can take small steps and build them out. This is why every digital transformation journey is unique.

Stop looking at the business Joneses and start looking at what you can change in your company to make it faster, more agile, and ready to evolve.

Article credit: Sage 

There’s little doubt that the disruption created by coronavirus (COVID-19) presents challenges to businesses. But how can your accountancy practice offer support to your clients at this time of uncertainty?

By putting a series of steps in place to support your clients and offer value, not only will you be able to help them, but you’ll also be able to position your practice and your team as trusted advisers.

In this article, we share some pointers that will help your clients. Plus, there’s advice from accountants on what they are doing to support their client bases.

Five ways to support your clients

Julia Wedgwood is the product manager for accountants at Sage and a familiar face within the accountant community.

Here, she suggests several things your practice can do to give your clients the support they are looking for as they tackle challenges due to coronavirus.

1. Provide the right knowledge

Understand what client knowledge of some areas around the emergency coronavirus government legislation might be limited – and be prepared to fill that gap.

For example, furloughing staff may require knowledge of employment and contract law. Accountants may already have this knowledge and, if not, they’re better placed to learn about it than the client.

2. Offer clarity around financial support

Help your clients understand what financial support is available to them, and that measures are at their disposals, such as the COVID-19 Debt Relief fund and the Sakuma fund,

It’s a good idea to segment your client base based on who is likely to require more help, or who may need certain kinds of funding or support from the emergency legislation.

You might even create group video meetings with these clients, or webinars, to discuss what they can do.

3. Support with loan applications

Be prepared to offer the support clients need to get through grant or loan applications. You may need to provide key financial reports for them, for example.

Some of these applications are going to be vital for their continuation in these trying times and is therefore vital for them remaining as a client for your firm.

4. Provide technical support

With in-person client meetings on hold, for now, your clients will be working with you remotely to go over their financials. If they need support with their cloud accounting software to do this, you’ll be in a good position to help them.

By providing support around this area of remote working, you could offer a valuable service to your clients. Any help you can offer will be undoubtedly warmly received.

5. Communicate regularly

Ensure you keep in touch with your clients so they don’t feel abandoned. Some of the conversations you have could be more emotional than usual, and will certainly cover different topics.

But your ability to provide an overview of a company’s finances and to apply this to the emergency offerings from the government and elsewhere has never been more vital.

Conclusion on supporting your clients

The concept of a trusted adviser has never been more relevant. As your clients seek guidance during difficult times, offering support to help their businesses keep moving is vital.

By going the extra mile to provide the assistance that your clients – both existing and new – require at this time, not only will you be helping them to get through times of uncertainty, you’ll also give your practice the best opportunity to keep thriving both now and in the future.

If you are you missing out on functionality that will help improve efficiencies and streamline your business, then now is the time to upgrade to the new Sage 200 Evolution version 10.

Keep reading to discover the host of new features and new modern look and feel introduced in Version 10.

What’s New In Sage 200 Evolution Version 10?

Microsoft Azure SQL Database

Version 10 of Sage 200 Evolution can host an Evolution Master and Common
database in Microsoft Azure SQL.
On the Locate Database wizard, point the SQL Server name to the instance set up
in Azure using SQL Authentication.
An option is available to use a secure connection to the SQL database.

Microsoft SQL 2017

The default SQL Server on the installation is now SQL 2017.

Direct Banking Integration

The Global Banking offering from Sage has been integrated into Sage 200 Evolution.
As a first iteration, a direct integration to download statements has been implemented with ABSA.
Using the Bank Manager module, Sage 200 Evolution will download the statement information directly into Bank Manager.

Each Bank Account can be set up for Bank Feeds.

Inter Branch Transfers

IBT Requisitions are enhanced to allow requisitions from within the same branch.
On the Requisition lines, an option is available to see all the quantities for the warehouse where stock is requisitioned from. All the warehouse quantity fields are visible on a new form called Stock Levels. Select this button on the Requisition form.

The fields that it will display includes:
Qty Required
Qty Available
Qty on Hand
Qty on SO
Qty on PO
Qty JC WIP
Qty MF WIP
Qty IBT to Issue
Qty IBT to Receive

On the Synchronisation Monitor, IBT’s that are processed will be part of the synchronisation, unprocessed IBT’s are excluded.

Source Document Layouts

The default source document layouts have been changed to use the text for the tax number as ‘VAT Number’.

Registration

The pin number for Version 10 has been changed and a re-registration is required.

Maintenance

Production items addressed in the release:

• IS-10652 – Volume discount contracts can be created for a customer name that contains an apostrophe
• IS-12117 – Allowing negative on a warehouse item has been corrected on a Sales Order
• IS-12085 – INTEGER values on _etblWhseIBTLines and _etblWhseIBTLineSN have been changed to BIGINT
• IS-11136 – Initial Import and Export corrected on the Sync Monitor using SQL2017
• IS-11501 – Asset copied at a branch will be created for the branch and not All Branches
• IS-12364 – Time of use Tariffs will calculate on a billing run
• IS-12328 – Finalisation process for pro-rata billing corrected to not give a “SelectCommand.Connection Property has not been initialised” error
• IS-12186 – Customer enquiries corrected on Municipal Billing to not display an error message “SelectCommand.Connection Property has not been initialised”
• IS-12059 – Loading of a sales order will now be faster if a customer record is linked to many delivery addresses (more than a thousand)
• IS-10189 – In a scenario when using the split delivery and invoice and using manufacturing on the fly, the Inventory Issue Accrual account will now be cleared
• IS-10658 – On a Service Task an error “One or more invalid arguments were passed to WarehouseContext Constructor” error has been corrected
• IS-12205 – Inclusive and exclusive values of purchase transactions have been corrected on the Tax Box report
• IS-11879 – A “String or Binary data will be truncated” error for suppliers with a description of more than 50 characters have been correct on Tax Management | Enquiries