COA Solutions – Business Accounting Software

Your business is only as good as your people – it is a commonly used and accepted adage. But in the case of your own organisation, is it actually true?

There is little point investing in internal staff if you are going to cut workers at the earliest sign of a downturn. Training and employing staff is a costly process and it is surely remiss to write off such investment.

A recession brings everything into focus. Cash – that might previously have been directed to a range of initiatives – is hoarded for the proverbial rainy day.

When money is tight, discretional spend takes a back seat. Rather than splash their cash on marketing or innovation programmes, businesses are keen to concentrate on operational expenditure.

Banks returning to profit and rising house prices can be seen as significant signs of a possible economic upturn.

However, now is not the time for complacency; positive signs are no excuse for a lack of attention to detail. Businesses that take time to heave a huge sigh of relief will see fast-moving rivals quickly pass their organisation.

Even the most optimistic of your employees is likely to concede it has not been an easy twelve months.

Sales are down, the UK economy is in debt and unemployment is rising. In hard times, how far would a depressed employee go? Would one of your workers commit fraud?

Research from the UK’s fraud prevention service CIFAS suggests an economic slowdown and a rise in fraud certainly go hand in hand, with a 40% increase in people being falsely impersonated last year compared with 2008.

When times are good, few people see the value of actively joining their user community. Often those that sacrifice their own and company time to lead the committee can feel they are pushing effort into a bottomless pit of apathy and derision. Even free to join user groups struggle to engage their members on a regular basis, surveying users again and again to try and understand where they are going wrong.

Two recent announcements from the SEC may start to breathe life into the XBRL initiative that is doing anything but delivering on the early promises of reduced cost, greater efficiency and improved accuracy.

Business Intelligence is a misnomer.

A lot of implementations that I see, and the discussions that I have with practitioners who have implemented them, seem to offer little to the business and display only a passing acquaintance with anything that could remotely be termed as intelligence.