Category: Business

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Accounts payable audit is a way to save you big money

An accounts payable audit is a way of searching your accounts records and finding out where the mistakes have occurred in the past – and, as a result, where they are likely to crop up in the future. Needless to say, errors of any sort in your accounts are a mistake you can’t afford to make – especially at the moment, in times of economic uncertainty. One of the most frequent problems is duplicate payments – paying the same individual or organisation twice for one invoice. This could be down to human error, but it can also happen more intentionally. This is another purpose of recovery audit software: to prevent fraud and regain money you have lost unnecessarily, whether through genuine mistake or through dishonest exploitation of the weaknesses in your system.

Estimates vary for the amount of money wasted by the average business on unnecessary payments, but it often comes out between 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent – that is, between one and 5 invoices per thousand. Needless to say, this can total a significant proportion of turnover. An examination of three years’ worth of accounts for many organisations can reveal discrepancies that run into three figures. The problem is that the average invoice has so many data fields that it is too easy to enter data inaccurately. In fact, auditors have found that errors of this type occur in the accounts for every single business whose accounts they have examined.

Depending on the size of your business, accounts mistakes could be costing you hundreds or thousands of pounds every month, if not more. That means that recovery audit software could net you tens of thousands of pounds back in bad payments. Even if the figure is less, it is likely to pay for itself the first time you ever use it, and continue to earn its keep in the months and years to come.

Such recovery audit software therefore promises a great return on investment and allows some peace of mind from the problems that human error always brings. Although it is probably impossible to eradicate duplicate payments altogether, an accounts payable audit will go a long way towards this goal. In an economic downturn or period of low growth, every method of saving money should be investigated. If checking your accounts can find the money you would have saved by making redundancies, then this has got to be a preferable option.

Please visit http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/ for further information about this topic.

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Document management – the office revolution

document management is truly a revolution hitting the modern workplace.  Piles of paperwork and millions of pounds lost from human error could soon become a thing of the past.  By way of explanation, a document management system is a computer system or set of computer programs used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents.  This allows accounts payable departments to handle document processing and invoice processing in a much more efficient way than ever before.

A document management system is usually also capable of keeping track of the different versions of documents created by different users, which is called history tracking.  The term has some overlap with the concepts of content management systems.  It is often seen as a component of enterprise content management systems, and is related to digital asset management, document imaging, workflow systems and records management systems.

The move towards this kind of technology began in the 1980s, when a number of vendors began developing systems to manage paper-based documents.  For many offices, the sheer number of paper documents that were piling up was becoming something of a problem.  The new systems dealt with paper documents, which included not only printed and published documents, but also photographs and prints.  Later on, developers began to write a second type of system which could manage electronic documents.  This meant that all documents or files created on computers and stored on local file systems could be controlled electronically.  The earliest electronic management systems managed either proprietary type files, or a limited number of file formats.  Many of these systems became known as document imaging systems, because they focussed on the capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of image file formats.  The systems enabled an organization to capture faxes and forms, to save copies of the documents as images, and to store the image files in a repository for security and quick retrieval.

The establishment of complex and effective document management systems has made a real difference in improving processes in many modern offices.  The sheer convenience of automating document processing systems leaves one wondering why it did not become commonplace years ago.  For anybody whose job involves invoice processing, this certainly seems to be something worth sitting up and taking notice of.  The only problem may be for filing cabinet manufacturers, as storing piles of paper documents is becoming increasingly unnecessary.  Perhaps they will need to think about diversifying and creating products to support electronic products.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Audio visual conferencing has plenty of benefits

Video conferencing has numerous benefits to businesses, at least some of which you may not have thought about. For starters, there is the plus of increased flexibility. Sorting out meetings between different people and groups can be a hard process, and in many cases it may simply not be worth it. First, you have to find a time when everyone is free. Then you have to actually meet, each person travelling to the set location. If this is happening nationally or even internationally, then it can take a lot of time – all of which has an opportunity cost associated with it, since even the best arrangements and facilities don’t make work when you’re on the road as easy as when you’re back in the office. Telepresence video conferencing can get around that problem with ease. audio visual conferencing also has the benefit that you can reschedule a meeting at short notice without totally messing up everyone’s schedules and wasting the money they’ve paid on travel – assuming that they’re not already on the way.

Another benefit is the quality of communication. People like talking in person: there’s no real substitute for face-to-face communication, which is why delegates go so far for important events. Phone conversations and email can achieve a certain amount, but they’re not perfect. Video conferencing isn’t precisely like being in the same room as the other people, but it’s not too far off – and it’s certainly a huge improvement. That will likely have positive knock-on impacts on relationships at work and on the task in hand. When people can see each others’ faces, hear their voices and read their body language, they connect much more; so much non-verbal information is lost through email or audio-only calls.

There are lots of other reasons to consider audio visual conferencing. Cost and environmental factors are two. After the set-up costs associated with video conferencing hardware, you will only have to pay for the connection and the power use, rather than travel bills and time costs. As a result, telepresence video conferencing is far more environmentally friendly than the alternative. If your work involves frequent travel, then you will understand that these meetings can be quite an inefficient use of time. You could be travelling for most of a day – or more – for a meeting that only lasts an hour or so. This answer cuts down time and financial costs, as well as carbon footprint: surely something to consider for the future of your company.

Please visit http://www.edgevision.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Bacs software makes accounts a lot simpler

Bacs, or Bankers Automated Clearing System, has now been around since the late 1960s. It is the UK’s way of making electronic cash payments. Bacs payments mean that you can provide a business with your bank details – account number and sort code – and have money transferred directly into your account. This naturally has numerous advantages. Speed is one of them – bacs happens almost instantly in lots of cases (although this depends a lot on the banks in questions – some transfers between some banks can be extremely fast, whereas others can take three working days, which is the standard time advertised in the industry). In any case, even the three-day limit is probably as fast, in many cases, as paying in cash or a cheque and waiting for it to clear. Convenience is another benefit – it reduces trips to the bank, and therefore leaves more time for other things. Security is another obvious one; it prevents the need to have large quantities of money on the premises, which might be a particular problem on payday. In the past, this would have meant that the whole company’s payroll was present – a clear risk. bacs software can therefore be a huge advantage for modern companies.

If you operate a small business – or anything larger – you will likely benefit from incorporating such bacs software into your accounts procedures. Automating invoice payments greatly simplifies the monthly (or more regular) task, since everything can be automated to the desired degree. This means that you don’t have to do the job by hand. Even if you still use online banking, thereby avoiding the issues with writing lots of cheques or, worse, handing out physical cash, setting up and paying all the amounts can be a tedious process. It’s also likely to mean a lower degree of mistakes, and therefore less problem with duplicate payments, fraud and other issues than can eat away at your profit margin through poor accounting procedures.

Bacs is fast and easy (SWIFT, a faster version, guarantees same-day payment, for a fee). Bacs payments have so many advantages that it’s useful for any business to explore bacs software as an option for paying invoices. In the 21st century, cheques and cash are less and less common payment methods, and the future of the cheque itself is becoming increasingly uncertain. Simplicity, security and reliability are three reasons to look into the system more closely, if you haven’t already.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Powerpoint presentations are not as intuitive as they seem

Powerpoint design is really simple. Thousands of people use it for sales presentations every day, and some do a reasonable job of it. powerpoint presentations are the industry standard for communicating information in a sales-type meeting, when you are wanting to convince the audience that you have the answer and product for them. Strong Powerpoint design, on the other hand – a presentation that does what you want it to and inspires and motivates rather than sends people to sleep – is a different and altogether trickier art.

Powerpoint is extremely versatile, and has a huge number of features – some of which will not even be apparent to the casual user. These can add real buzz to your presentations; on the other hand, poorly used they can detract badly from the message you are trying to get across, and act as a distraction. The best use of Powerpoint is as a support to what you are saying, not as competition, and definitely not as a replacement. It needs to function in such a way as to draw in the audience, rather than alienate them or give them an opportunity to switch off from listening to you. (Incidentally, the same goes of any handouts you send round – they need to complement your presentation rather than replace it. There is nothing worse, from the audience’s point of view, of receiving what is essentially the same presentation three times, in forms that hardly differ – once on a handout, once on the screen with Powerpoint, and once spoken by you.)

A little training in Powerpoint design can go a long way. Even if it’s just taking you through the basics and showing you how the main functions work – and how they should be used to maximum effect – then it can be worth a lot in sales later on. Say, for the sake of argument, that the training you receive from a professional organisation or individual makes the difference in a single instance, securing a deal through your superior sales presentations that you would otherwise have missed out on? That’s probably enough to pay for the training money, several times over, already. Previously, your lacklustre powerpoint presentations might have held you back; now, they are the missing piece you needed to make all the difference. That’s something that’s definitely worth thinking about next time you’re sitting through a tedious sales meeting with one of the worst examples in front of you.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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