Category: Business

Recovery Audit Software – enabling your finance department to take control of their own auditing…

John

The Accounts Payable audit is a necessary procedure in modern workplaces.  However expert and diligent accounts teams are, duplicate payments and other errors are very likely to occur, and these can end up costing thousands of pounds. Many businesses call in the services of professional recovery auditors, but these often charge extremely high fees.  If it is possible to teach your own in-house Accounts Payable teams to conduct the recovery auditing, you may be able to save money and improve internal processes.  This can now be done thanks to recovery audit software.

The software detects duplicate payments, invoicing errors, compliance issues and supplier fraud.  As it can be used by Accounts Payable teams, it not only increases control but also improves processes, thus preventing more errors from happening.  Using a combination of search algorithms and pattern matching technology, the software generates a detailed report of potential duplicate payments and errors that may have been made.  The benefits of using this technology are manifold.

The software allows you to pre-process your upcoming payments, so that you should never have to pay a duplicate invoice again.  You can audit all your past payment data in one easy step, and any money recouped through recovery will go straight to your bottom line, increasing your profitability.  Importantly, the software informs you of the reason for each duplicate, enabling you to improve your processes and prevent it from happening again.  It is often a sensible thing to recover control of your accounts payable audit process – it may be satisfying to see an outside team of experts come in and deal with the process, but the knowledge and overview that can be achieved from conducting this process in-house is priceless.

In addition, surprisingly little training is required to use the software.  Anyone in the Accounts Payable team can use it, and there is no need for any auditing qualifications.  There are therefore no retraining fees.  Indeed installation and ownership also incur fairly little by way of cost.  Training and installation is very quick, and designed to work immediately.  Free online training is provided annually to ensure that ownership costs are as low as possible.

recovery audit software really can revolutionise the way you conduct your accounts payable audit.  The process of checking for duplicate payments and other errors can tell you a lot about how the department works and how it can improve, so surely it makes perfect sense to conduct this process using your own existing team.

Please visit https://www.fiscaltec.com/uk for further info.

Presentation Design Agency – Used to Best effect…

Annie

Powerpoint presentations have long been a double-edged sword. Competent sales presentations using decent powerpoint design can be a real asset to a company. A low-quality presentation, put together by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, can be a liability.

One of the difficulties with Powerpoint, as well as its advantage, is that it is so easy to use. Without any background, someone with basic computer literacy can throw together a slideshow without too much trouble. It’s extremely powerful, allowing you to embed all kinds of different graphics, movies, audio and other effects. So much is built in that a speaker planning to make a good impression can really go to town, incorporating as many as possible of its bells and whistles.

This, however, is often a hopeless mistake. Powerpoint design is a fairly tricky art. Like any audio-visual medium, doing it well is not as easy as it looks. Just because you can put together a poster with desktop publishing software, or a home movie with a video camera, doesn’t mean that the product will convince the audience.

Worse, Powerpoint is so popular in the business world that there is often the expectation that it will be used – both on the part of the audience and the speaker. That means that presentations can be thrown together just to fulfil that expectation. Whilst well-designed Powerpoint presentations can add a whole other dimension to a speech, giving complementary information and appealing to listeners for whom the spoken word isn’t a natural medium, a bad presentation will put people off. Put another way, not having a Powerpoint presentation is better than having a bad one. This can hamstring otherwise good speakers, because they find that the slideshow actually detracts from what they are saying. This is never more the case when it simply follows the material verbatim – a mistake that is all too common.

The purpose of sales presentations is to win a deal. Good Powerpoint design can help you with this; bad powerpoint design can end up losing you the bid. If you are in any doubt, compare a few successful presentations – yours or other companies’ – with presentations that haven’t gone so well. What has been the difference? Where Powerpoint adds to clear and effective communication, it is an asset. Where is makes things more complicated and distracting, it’s best left out. The trick is understanding how to do it properly, every time.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/

Document management that transforms paper into shared content

Charlie

Businesses are like machines: they have mechanisms, input and output, and a function. Certain businesses might also be compared with domestic appliances: as long as they serve us we are happy, looking to fix them only when we notice something wrong. But the forward-thinking entrepreneur will act before problems occur or the system begins to break down, because there is far more at stake when a business stops working than when your hoover gives up. A malfunctioning business cannot simply be disposed of and replaced. It is advisable then to extend the capabilities of an existing system before what works at a reasonable rate starts to fail. It always pays to be one step ahead of the game when you’re in business, and this includes looking after your document management, document processing and invoice processing.

The latter is especially important if your business outsources much of its work. A mobile team of employees will be loyal to a client that respects its worth but as soon as things look shaky they may seek work elsewhere. This is because freelance work is unpredictable and the self-employed need a constant flow of tasks. One obvious way to keep your mobile employees happy consists of paying them in a timely manner. Once they have billed you, invoice processing should be speedy and certainly within the time frame you promised. Allowing your freelancers to email their invoices and paying them by direct online transfer will save time, money and a whole host of complications.

Similar principles can be applied to the work that your team submits: rather than allowing a messy flow of print-outs and handwritten material to come in, you should consider the benefits of electronic document processing. Deadlines are often adhered to much more strictly when document management occurs on a shared network or online: everyone knows that their progress is easily traced and that things rarely get lost if they’ve been properly backed up.

Altogether, your business will function like a well-oiled machine if you pay attention to your staff, their payments and the overall workflow affecting the company’s output. Efficient invoice processing solutions not only increase employee satisfaction, they also guard against fraud. Streamlined document processing can entail working collaboratively; relieving pressure on the individual faced with an otherwise insurmountable number of tasks. Indeed, document management should not be top-down in this day and age but rather networked, creative and conducive to business growth.

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

Next Generation Access available in country areas

John

ICT infrastructure is a significant part of the government’s commitment over the coming years, for the simple reason that internet access is no longer seen as a luxury. Although it may not be a necessity for present-day life in the same way that electricity is, it is not far off. In this sense, broadband is more like a utility than a luxury service. It is crucial to the success of many businesses, as well as the day-to-day activities of the majority of the UK population. Those who do not live in built-up areas and do not have the high-speed internet access that these places do are subject to a significant disadvantage in a range of ways. Some may be landed with old technology and speeds that are literally dial-up in nature – or might as well be. Fortunately, help is at hand due to next generation access initiatives. These community broadband projects allow individuals to club together and gain the benefits of web connectivity that other people enjoy all the time – benefits that spread from the home to work, lifting opportunities and standards of life as they go.

These Next Generation Access projects can be bought by groups of households, who merely want to get online for their own personal use, or by clusters of companies who see that their businesses will benefit massively from the new opportunities they will have. They may desire to do something as simple as build a website to snare new customers, or it may be something that uses the internet as an integral part of what they do – essentially, enabling a business that could not have existed without internet access.

Connectivity is still hit and miss around the country, with the best internet access present in city centres. Although much of the UK is connected to the web, the quality and speed of this changes significantly. In many cases the ICT infrastructure uses ancient technology – the phone companies’ copper cables, which were laid down decades ago and for very different reasons. Although the web began life making the most of these cables, it has long since outgrown them and they are entirely unsuited to the demands of today’s web traffic. Community broadband changes all this. next generation access is a way for everyone to enjoy what the rest of the country takes for granted and rarely questions (until it goes wrong): fast, cheap and reliable internet access.

Please visit http://www.broadbandvantage.co.uk/

Recovery Audit Software – Protecting Company Money

Annie

Mistakes are rarely, perhaps never possible to defeat entirely. There are always things that with hindsight we would have done differently, a turn of events that we would rather reverse. And luckily, mistakes that happen in genuine error where it seems fate has conspired against someone are usually quickly forgiven. There are instances, however, where errors are less easily put out of mind. Take any instances involving our finances – a sudden loss of money, a mislaid or unpaid sum will provoke bad feeling, especially in these times of austerity where many people feel an extra strong need to protect their assets. For those in business, accounts payable audit systems can help errors be avoided. When the books don’t add up, recovery audit software can rescue an unwanted situation from getting out of hand, while also detecting any duplicate payments made. The last of these mistakes is akin to throwing money down the drain! An irresponsible act at any time, especially in the current economic climate.

Even small scale businesses should avoid trusting a single employee with the colossal responsibility of managing their accounts using excel spreadsheets, notepaper or a calculator. The risk of human error in this scenario is simply far too large. Instead, companies – whether of world standing or local nature – should unite in embracing excellent software that takes care of their accounting in the most streamlined of ways. Supplier fraud and compliance issues are two aberrant potentials in business that can be kept at bay once accounts teams start using accounts payable audit software. To put it simply, processes can be simplified by embracing this technology: control is increased and errors can almost always be prevented from happening.

An accounts payable audit can easily be justified. recovery audit software allows businesses to assert themselves. Normally, a company will pay external auditors to help them identify any expensive over-payments made. But this is an expense that can be saved by the companies that decide, very sensibly, to internalise the process. Duplicate payments can be identified within the company when the right software is used that draws the attention of accounting teams to any mistakes. Unfortunately many payees will not own up to receiving a payment twice over so it falls to the paying party to rectify such a costly mistake.

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

 

Improve your sales presentations with Powerpoint design

John

I had been doing sales presentations for years when my boss took me to one side and started to question why my performance was not as strong as the rest of the team’s.  He asked me to give him one of my standard Powerpoint presentations, to give him a better sense of what I was doing in my meetings.  He wasn’t totally unimpressed by my efforts, but he thought that my use of Powerpoint design could do with being updated.  I hadn’t been on a course for a good few years and had been concentrating on the content of my presentations at the expense of the style, which is more important than I realised.

My boss sent me on a brief course which I found really useful.  It really made me aware of all the tools in the program that enable you to really make your presentation into a multimedia experience that is less at risk of boring the audience to tears.  I found it really useful thinking a bit more in depth about the visual element of my presentation.  I had always included pictures, but the course flagged up how carefully these need to be considered.  Rather than picking a vaguely suitable picture to go with a statistic, it is more effective to use a pie chart or bar graph that properly reinforces the statistic.

The course also emphasised that, while Powerpoint design does allow for very technical and detailed slides, simplicity remains very important.  As the audience only sees each slide for a number of seconds, a hectic page is unlikely to make an impression and convey all the information on it.  The old rule that audiences can take in three points at a time is worth remembering, and extra elements such as video content should be viewed in context of this.  I was glad that the team at the training course also worked with me on my existing presentations, looking at how I could improve the effectiveness of the message I wanted to convey.  General advice is always useful, but I really felt that I got value for money when I was able to see how much better my new presentation was than the one I would traditionally give.

When I got back to the office I was actually quite excited about showing my boss my new Powerpoint presentations!  He agreed with me that they did a much better job at getting my point across, and were more entertaining as well.  My next sales presentations went quite well, as I was much more confident about my new presentations, I think this improved my confidence and therefore my presentation style.  A bit of Powerpoint design training certainly went a long way.

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

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Audio Visual Conferencing: From Simple Beginnings to a Spectacular Future

John

Video conferencing technology has come a very long way since the development of digital telephony transmission networks, which occurred in the 1980s. Back then, the first commercial telepresence video conferencing systems started to arrive on the market. But the audio visual conferencing that it was designed for was hard on transmission networks, and the compression of large volumes of data was problematic. As a result of this, the technology was costly, and this price transferred onto clients and customers.

The 1990s, however, saw a surge in development regarding the technology involved in video conferencing. For the first time the data could be compressed using Internet Protocol, which meant that audio visual communication was possible on desktop computers. Simultaneously the technology involved in the compression of data became ever more advanced. Step by step, conferencing solutions continued to evolve as an industry, and the ready availability of the required technology, coupled with a rise in international trade and a demand for fast communication, meant that these solutions became ever more affordable and, as such, ubiquitous in businesses.

Now we have entered the second decade of the twenty-first century, and technology is more sophisticated than ever. These are really invigorating times for global communication, and boundaries continue to be probed. But the best part is that this technology is available to your company for an affordable fee. Its use is not limited to the highest profile platforms such as the news media and awards ceremonies (in the form of satellite links, for example) but has spread to the wider public through the availability of personal internet access in the form of web chatting and, more recently the Skype phenomenon.

While in the past, we have marvelled at the idea of being in ever more realistic ‘virtual’ contact with people across the globe, this has only been an idea, and the reality has not done it justice. You only need to look at 1990s television adverts for internet providers to understand this; they make it seem like you could step into someone else’s world for a while before coming back to your own, when really the product they are advertising is video added to a phone call. In this era of audio video conferencing we have edged the reality closer to the idea. audio visual conferencing today is considerably more than just video added to a phone call. Telepresence video conferencing makes the whole experience as near to real as it is possible to get.

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

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Recovery audit software is especially critical in difficult economic times

Annie

The bigger a business grows, the more important a role its accounts payable audit department will have. A certain percentage of invoice payments, estimated by Fiscal Technologies to be between 0.5 per cent and 0.1 per cent, are, actually, duplicate payments. Naturally, it is very difficult to tell precisely how much of a loss this means for the company, since each invoice payment is for a determined amount. So, if you are lucky, a duplicate might occur for a small payment, or if you are not so lucky, a much larger payment will be duplicated. But, statistically speaking, it likely that 0.1 per cent of invoice expenditure will be doubled unnecessarily. Recovery audit software is a way of recuperating the losses incurred by these duplications.

How do duplicate payments happen? Well, there is a plethora of ways in which this problem may arise. Commonly it comes from human error that consequently affects either the supplier’s or the in-house data entry system. Generally speaking, an invoice entry will require about twelve different fields to be filled in by a member of a data entry team, such as an invoice number, a quantity of supplies, a supplier number, a date, and a purchase order number.

The cost of recovery can be surprisingly high; independent recovery auditors might charge a huge commission – often in the region of fifty per cent – of the payments that they successfully recover for you. And that, of course, does not account for those that they cannot identify. With recovery audit software your accounts payable team can run audits daily, or weekly, in order to optimise your chances of paying no more than the correct amounts.

A solution to this problem is increasingly urgent in uncertain, and challenging, economic times. Why? It is not only – or mainly – because the pressure grows on your own business to ‘do more with less’, as they say, and to remove waste and leakage from your expenditure. This is, of course, true, though, and the longer an organisation goes without an effective recovery solution, the older duplicate payments become, and the pricier it becomes to recuperate them. The main reason for the urgency is the variety of factors in the economic climate that cannot be controlled. Again, the longer a payment goes unrecovered, the bigger the risk becomes that suppliers relevant to the payments may go out of business. Accounts payable audit teams are advised to make use of recovery audit software to safeguard companies against these specific dangers.

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

http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/