When you make the move from an accountancy practice to a Finance Director role, you have the opportunity to stand out and make a clear impact. You can create lasting transformation and drive the success of your new employer.
But how can you make the biggest impact possible? What steps can you take to make a success?
The key thing is to take your knowledge and expertise that has been well-honed and developed over the years in practice and bring into the office of finance.
A number of businesses that IRIS has worked with in recent times have reaped the benefits from increasing control and visibility of their accounts preparation, corporation tax liabilities and company secretarial obligations. They have also been benefiting from the cost savings that internal accounts production can bring.
On day one, you can see an immediate, tangible, achievable and visible cost-saving, which you can demonstrate to your employer really quickly in the first five months of employment.
All of the fiddly, awkward, time-consuming work on Microsoft Word or Excel can be eliminated. Finance Directors find the functionality easy and the bringing forward of disclosure very useful. Previously they would have to do this manually in Word for each set of accounts.
The time savings are well summed up by Andrew Hughes, Financial Controller at Heal’s. He said: “I’ve just completed our third year of using IRIS Accounts Production and there’s a measurable difference in speed. This year we completed our accounts for review by the auditors around two days earlier than we used to do with Microsoft Word and Excel.”
He added: “Possibly the worst thing about using Microsoft applications is that making a small change in one area can upset all the formatting. In contrast, with IRIS Accounts Production, changes in the accounts flow through to the notes also roll forward to the following year, along with the opening balances. We’re very satisfied with the software and the support we’ve received.”
Another area that makes a large time saving is the data screen expressions, which provides the ability to update freeform notes automatically based on the current year or previous year’s figures.
In our experience, one of the biggest reasons corporate clients use our software is to reduce the audit costs by completing the accounts themselves.
We are helping in-house finance departments to effectively manage:
Compliance is another big area where IRIS can help. As the UK’s market-leading accountancy solutions provider, our extensive knowledge of legislation is second to none. FRS102, FRS101 & IFRS compliant accounts are handled with ease. We also offer a range of solutions for iXBRL tagging.
Corporate finance departments can benefit from many time-saving features when using IRIS Accounts Production because it makes final accounts preparation a more efficient task, thereby helping the corporate finance department workflow.
Gerard Nieslony, Group Financial Controller at Foxtons Estate Agents, had this to say about it: “IRIS Accounts Production is a very user-friendly product, offering a guided process for statutory accounts production. I feel this is especially important for accountants in the commercial sphere who, unlike accountants in practice, are not working on statutory accounts every day.”
Mr Niesolny said that making the move to produce the statutory accounts in-house had been a very beneficial one and had been possible thanks to IRIS Accounts Production.
He said: “Bringing this important accounting task within our control gives us the advantages of lower costs and being able to make amendments easily ourselves. This has been achieved without adding to the burden on our accounting team. Our time is at a premium and IRIS Accounts Production has proved a most efficient way to prepare our statutory accounts, while meeting HMRC’s iXBRL requirements.”
The software benefits your department in the following ways:
One of the key things that IRIS software offers you is increased automation – and that’s something that is to be embraced, according to a number of speakers at the recent 2019 Treasury Leaders’ Summit. As reported by Financial Director, rather than taking jobs away, automation can enhance jobs and take away the humdrum activities that have plagued the financial sector.
According to the FD report: “At the Summit, speakers encouraged financial departments to capitalise on the human element of the industry, particularly the creativity that only a person can bring to their role. While software can plug numbers and file invoices, people can problem-solve and create unique answers with the extra time that automation gives them.”
So, that’s even more reason to consider making the change.
In short: Why IRIS Accounts Production benefits your finance department
There’s an upward growth in Finance Directors adopting IRIS and we see this continuing. Will you be next in taking this step?
Let one of our team call you. Drop us an email at [email protected] or call us to arrange a time for an IRIS expert to ring you back 0344 844 9644.