How to get management “buy-in” for purchase invoice and order automation

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Ever wonder why is Finance always at the back of the queue for investment? The one common characteristic of every finance team is that it is always crazy busy. This is exacerbated each month-end in the scramble to get everything processed to produce the month-end accounts, management information pack, and quarterly VAT returns as well as the annual pain of year-end and the subsequent audit. Most finance departments are becoming increasingly frustrated by their inability to evolve and adopt better methodologies simply because there are always “more important” projects for the corporate cash and available resources. Unfortunately, it is equally […]

A fundamental problem with current “Financial Management”

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Nobody is going to argue that good decision-making takes place when we have all the relevant information, immediately to hand, influenced by our experience, PRIOR to making the decision. So, there can be no argument that good financial management works the same. For business, once a contract has been agreed or a purchase order placed, the following transaction processing is simply accounting, the diligent recording and processing the resulting documents, (i.e. the order and the invoice), to meet all the statutory requirements in a timely manner. So, what is the “real-time” information that finance provides to the budget holders – the people […]

Budget holders: It is time you held Finance to account.

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I appreciate what follows is potentially going to be seen as contentious, so I apologise in advance if some of you perceive this as offensive, as that is not my intention. The issue is straightforward. Many finance departments believe that their accounting processes are acceptable and many are unwilling to even listen to understand alternative methodologies perhaps because they did not think of it or they have a low opinion of the financial skills of the directors and budget holders in the business (so, what is the point?). Perhaps they like the status quo, namely ensuring that the people that […]

The best way to cut your PO approval time

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When I first joined Compleat, I discovered that some products dedicated to automating the purchase process were tackling problems I had never dealt with in my career as a marketer, but not CompleatOrder. That one hit home. Here at Compleat, we organise quite a few events every year: In 2016, we exhibited at Charity Finance Summit, the Business Show, and FinTech Connect Live. For each event, I had to deal with many different suppliers, some offering the same products, and some others providing services we could purchase from other suppliers we already had done business with. How could I stay […]

Calling all budget holders: It is time to take your budget into your own hands

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Hi there, Budget Holder, let’s be candid, your finance department doesn’t to do a lot to help you manage your budget or spend. Perhaps more worrying is the fact that they believe everything regarding finance works just fine. As you probably already know, this simply is not the case. There are no corporate systems to make it simple to capture and track everything you buy, manage your budgets, plan for future spend and manage costs against projects, so each of you must improvise. To manage spend against budget, you must create and then update your own spreadsheets with everything you […]

This is the way all executives want to manage their budgets

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How would you like to be able to work like this? You are electronically notified of a supplier’s invoice arrival waiting for you to approve it; you review it in detail (by looking at it on whatever device you choose), then simply “click or tap” to either approve or deny the invoice. If you are the final approver, the invoice is immediately posted directly to your accounting system, ready for timely payment. But it does not end there. You also have real-time dashboards and comprehensive reports about every supplier, how much you spend with them, what the expense was for […]

Finance Managers: Why is e-invoicing “a step too far”?

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Don’t answer that – it is a standard “no win” question. But unfortunately, it is also increasingly applicable to any finance department that is still processing paper invoices. The emotional challenge for finance people is that the paper invoice represents the critical source document for everything that is bought or sold and their entire career experience has been founded on the paper invoice being sacrosanct. So, it is not surprising that senior finance executives faced with the proposal of removing all the paper invoices use the term “a step too far”. So, what is the problem? The common reasons for the “step too […]

Budget Holder Management delivers the next generation of corporate financial management

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In almost every business there is a total financial disconnect between the finance professionals and the budget holders. Most competent budget holders utilise their own “homegrown” spreadsheets to manage their corporate budgets, project-related spend and “other” spend. The budget holders have their own spend analysis to justify and track spend that pertains to their departments. For example, a marketing spreadsheet will have a completely different set of spend analysis from IT’s spreadsheet. The level of analysis and the processes that surround it (e.g. the capturing of costs) will also reflect the diligence and aptitude of the individual budget holder and […]