There are a number of reasons why sustainability matters. First, the obvious demand for corporate social responsibility – continuing concerns over power use and global warming mean firms cannot afford to put profits before principles, especially if they want to create a positive perception of their brand.

Secondly, choosing to ignore sustainability concerns does not mean they will slip silently away. The UK government is increasingly keen to place green at the top of the legislative agenda for businesses, and organisations will soon find that they need to report carbon emissions in the same way as they file financial figures at year-end.

However, many firms are badly prepared for such inevitability. The Carbon Trust reports that just 59% of blue-chip companies have robust carbon aims, despite the British government’s decision to set a legally binding target on greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020.

Much work needs to be done. Smart executives will turn to technology to help monitor carbon use, making the demands of compliance and reporting as painless as possible.

A good example of such technology is Advanced Business Solutions’ Carbon Accounting solution, a comprehensive and sophisticated tracking product. The product is integrated with Advanced’s OpenAccounts financial management system and enables businesses to quickly measure and then budget effectively for emissions.

High quality reporting tools capture carbon emissions data automatically and provide information on-demand to executives. The result is instant transparency, while simultaneously cutting the time-consuming processing associated with manual data entry and manipulation.

Which brings us nicely to the final reason why sustainability matters – going green does not have to be a costly activity. In fact, sustainable technology projects can also help increase business efficiency while slashing operational costs. Going green and operating more efficiently often go hand in hand.

In short, being green might have slipped down the corporate priority list during the downturn but pushing sustainability back to the top of the business agenda will mean your organisation is better prepared for a brighter, better future.

Don’t let the green agenda keep slipping down the priority list is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

With electronic communication commonplace in all walks of life, you would have thought that few businesses would be posting letters these days. However this is far from the reality.

Despite the tide of communication being firmly in cyber space, many businesses still rely on the postman to deliver documents. More than two billion letters are sent in the UK each year and the majority of Royal Mail’s daily postbag of 62 million items is business mail. If this continues, proposed changes to postage rates will soon be hitting businesses hard.

Reports suggest Royal Mail might soon be allowed to charge as much as it likes for a first-class stamp and prices could be as high as £1 (see further reading, below). Ofcom also wants to do away with caps on service charges to help the postal service steer clear of ‘an inexorable spiral of decline’. These figures illustrate that, while change might be necessary to help cover ever-increasing costs, many businesses will suffer a huge rise in postal prices. At a time of economic turmoil, an expected rise in postal costs – potentially as early as spring next year – would create untold damage.

Business leaders must think carefully about their continuing requirements for snail mail. Many businesses still send financial and payroll documents, such as invoices, purchase orders and payslips, by post. Proposed increases in postal fees suggests that relying on traditional, slow methods of document delivery could be a costly mistake.

The automated delivery of documents by email allows firms to send documents quickly and cheaply and without the huge levies associated with hand-delivered mail. Automated delivery systems can also email out thousands of documents all at once, significantly cutting time-consuming administration. Other benefits include greater transparency, no ‘lost’ documents and improved efficiencies. By integrating document management with existing IT systems such as accounting, HR and payroll systems, the cost and efficiency benefits are magnified.

So, when postage costs are hiked up in the spring of 2012, will your business take the hit or will you consider smarter ways to deliver your documents?  The future of mail really is electronic.

Further reading:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2051727/Royal-Mail-postage-costs-soar-Ofcom-takes-cap-capped-prices.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/are-we-facing-the-death-of-email-6273170.html

Posting business documents needs to become a thing of the past! is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Action concentrated on proposed changes to pension schemes, yet the sentiment associated with the strike seemed to draw on wider themes – the UK economy is struggling, conditions are only going to get tougher and public sector bodies must get a grip on spending.

Executives faced with making spending decisions face a tough job. On the one hand, citizens require a set of services that continue to meet their needs, particularly at a time when economic constraint means demands for support are likely to increase.

On the other hand, continued pressure from the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) means that the public sector must prove value for money and demonstrate means to reduce spending. The CSR will lead to an £81 billion cut in public spending between now and 2014/15, with average departmental cuts of 19% (see further reading, below).

Spending visibility can only be gained through the implementation of the right technologies. Public sector bodies will not be able to keep procurement in check if they do not have the right level of awareness about how much is being spent by different departments and on what.

And so now is the time to invest in budgeting, forecasting, planning and analytical technologies that will provide transparency into how public sector cash is being spent. Certain bodies are already investing in these technologies as a means to deliver greater spending transparency and to help cut costs.

Cheshire West and Chester Council is implementing a budget monitoring and forecasting system from Advanced Business Solutions to enable £500,000 cost savings during the next three years (see further reading). The system will go live in 2012 and is being integrated into the Council’s existing Oracle system to enable the quick download of data.

Such integrated use of technology creates a single version of the truth, enabling better-informed spending decisions. Trying to make serious spending cuts without such technologies in place is akin to trying to climb Mount Everest in a pair of slippers.

Further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spending_Review

http://www.advancedcomputersoftware.com/abs//news/cheshire-west-and-chester-council.php

http://www.advancedcomputersoftware.com/abs/resources/pdf/AdvBS216_FS_spend_analytics.pdf

Public sector bodies need to get a grip on spend is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

You’ve heard all about the cloud and how utility-based technology can help you save money through the purchasing of on-demand technology. But that’s a large-scale transformation project which requires much thought and buy-in. What about smaller technology investments that reduce process variability while cutting time-consuming and costly manual processes?

By automating your procure-to-pay (P2P) cycle, you can produce quick business benefits for a relatively small investment. You might not want to pay for a fully-automated procurement process, but you cannot afford to scrimp and save on P2P.

Automating P2P is inherently cost-effective, meaning justification fears around return on investment are reduced. Automating P2P will always produce benefits and help your organisation to remove time-consuming administration in a cost-conscious climate.

Automation means that the business impact of purchasing is reduced because goods and services can be procured quicker and therefore more cost effectively. Take Gloucester City Council, which has cut the time taken to procure an item by 75% – imagine what your business could do with such time savings!

Procurement automation also delivers greater control over spending by eliminating  maverick purchasing. An automated record of orders, approvals and payments ensures financial visibility and errant activities can be monitored and stamped out quickly.

In addition, the electronic capture of information encourages smarter decision making and reduces costs. A sensible combination of electronic communication and automated procurement processing can produce as much as a 75% reduction in requisition processing costs and an 80% cut in central processing costs.

Cost savings can also be achieved as a result of rationalising suppliers down to one or two key suppliers of each main product/service, thereby taking advantage of greater efficiencies of scale. An automated approach is more able to identify key suppliers, bring about supplier rationalisation and ensure only approved suppliers are used across the organisation.

Finally, procurement automation can help your organisation deal with the increasing regulatory bind associated with corporate governance. Manual processes are inherently error-prone and open to abuse. Moving towards automation can ensure procurement is carefully managed and the risk of fraud is reduced.

So automation of procurement can produce big wins for the business. Moving to new automated processes is never an easy decision, especially when the cost of implementing new technology is hard to justify. However, the business benefits should reassure you that this is a move that would be worth every penny!

Top reasons for automating procurement is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The Eurozone is fighting for survival, capitalism has been forced on to the back foot and some indicators even suggest fast-growing economies, such as China, are starting to see the pace of economic development slow. Merry Christmas, and look forward to more doom and gloom in 2012!

Except it doesn’t have to be like that. Businesses have to cut their cloth accordingly but constrained economic conditions shouldn’t mean you have to turn down every opportunity to invest. In fact, smart business leaders are already thinking about new spending priorities.

Technology will play a crucial role in helping the business to find a competitive advantage in trying circumstances. IT leaders must show c-suite leaders that they are right to think that technology now, more than ever before, is a sensible investment.

After all, research from Warwick Business School suggests that two-thirds of chief executives still believe IT will make a greater contribution to their industry in the next 10 years than in any prior decade (see further reading, below). The boss, then, should be receptive to your IT investment ideas.

Analyst, Gartner, reports that companies will spend $2.7bn on IT products and services in 2012, which represents a 3.9% increase on the current year (see further reading). Look for projects that can automate processes, promote efficient ways of working and demonstrate a quick return on investment.

Your priorities should include budgeting and forecasting systems and business analytics solutions. Modern businesses are drowning in structured and unstructured data. Analytical tools are the key to unlocking smarter business decisions, with analyst Ovum suggesting that 50% of IT leaders plan to spend on big data analytics in the coming years (see further reading).

CIOs should also use 2012 to investigate opportunities for outsourcing IT to managed services or cloud computing providers. External and on-demand provision can create significant cost and efficiency savings, with researcher IDC expecting about 80% of new software offerings to be available as cloud services by 2014 (see further reading).

Spending big on new areas might seem risky at a time on economic uncertainty. However the senior IT executive that fails to spot smart investment opportunities will be left out in the cold.

Further reading:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ce0a9e0-1c79-11e1-af09-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gbG4qfeh

http://searchbusinessintelligence.techtarget.in/news/2240106993/IT-spending-on-big-data-analytics-to-get-a-boost-in-2012-13-Report

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/65727/Cloud+Computing+Rivalry+Heats+Up

Don’t be a Scrooge when it comes to 2012 IT investment is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The commercial sector embarked on the shared services journey earlier than the public sector, however, in response to budget cutbacks, the government is increasingly urging the public sector to follow suit and they are now catching up. Local authorities have been subject to especially high budget cuts in recent times and are ideally placed for sharing services. In fact, there has never been a more crucial time for them to do so.

Setting off on the shared services journey involves considerable transformation. As with any transformation, there are barriers to overcome but you shouldn’t let this put you off as long-term cost and efficiency savings make it worthwhile. Some of our local government customers that have embraced the shared services opportunity have gone onto save millions of pounds whilst maintaining and improving services.

The barriers to implementing successful shared services within local government are often political, people related and technological, as follows:

Politics – Local authorities may have to overcome two types of political challenges. Firstly, neighbouring authorities may have different political allegiances, making sharing services a challenge. Elections will also be a barrier to start a shared service as coping with the negative press may impact votes. Secondly, there is likely to be internal politics around who, from the two or more councils, are going to be the ‘leaders’ taking forward the shared services program and if there is a shared management team, how the roles will be shared between the councils. Knowing that there will be unwanted competition for management team places could well make councils reluctant to approach sharing services in a gung ho way.

Trust – Sharing services with one or more local authority involves having to overcome trust issues. To alleviate these issues, it is important for local authorities to carefully consider their partnerships and not to rush into a situation that may not be the right fit. Therefore research is key. Once satisfied with the chosen partner/s, there is no reason not to trust them. In fact, trust will be key to the success of the project.

People issues – Sharing services typically means consolidating resources into one central shared function and so there are potential job losses and the inevitable involvement of unions. The expected fallout may seem an insurmountable barrier. To overcome these people issues, it’s important to have strong leadership, a clear vision and robust communications with both staff and unions.

Training and skills – A local authority may be happy to share their services but it may not be an easy sell to a new partner if the right training and skills are not in place. For instance, the financial director (FD) in a local authority shared service will need to be able to effectively market their financial skills and knowledge when trying to convince another public sector body to use their resources. Some FDs will see this new marketing and sales requirement as an enormous challenge and may require additional training.

Technology – Effective shared services requires the right IT infrastructure and if this is not in place, managers may think that moving to a suitable platform is too costly or troublesome. It needn’t be this way. The key is to choose a quality IT provider that has experience of shared services and has a track record of successful implementations.

When implementing a shared services model, it’s vital for managers to do their background research, choose the right partners and providers, and seek out advice on how to overcome the challenges. If these guidelines are followed, you will alleviate key concerns and avoid wasting time. There will be barriers, but if in doubt, take some comfort in Heraclitus’s wise words and take the leap.

Shared Services: Overcoming barriers in local government is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

This year at the Green Apple Awards, we were honoured for our HR Self-Service solution, which enables paper-heavy HR and payroll administration to be replaced with a web-based solution.

We are always proud to win awards, but in the midst of our success, we mustn’t forget why we’ve been honoured. Placing ‘green’ high on our agenda is far more than a compliance exercise; it should be ingrained in everything we do.

Our HR Self-Service solution has been recognised for fostering green practices by reducing the production and distribution of paperwork around an organisation and for cutting carbon emissions.

In these times of austerity, many organisations are looking to take steps to make significant cost savings and maximise value. Taking such steps should not be treated as a chore, nor should they be costly. With key systems and solutions such as HR Self-Service, a move to becoming ‘green’ is made that much easier whilst making smart business sense.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that our subsidiary company, Version One, also picked up a Green Apple Award for its document management technology. Version One’s software helps cut costs and improve efficiency by automating the access to key documents.

As we continue to develop solutions for our customers and strive for awards, we mustn’t forget the importance of keeping green at the top of the agenda.

Keeping green at the top of the agenda is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

One of the better-known techniques used to defraud a business is salami slicing, where an individual repeatedly rounds to the nearest penny or unit and deposits the money collected into separate accounts. Salami slicing is a popular mechanism in fiction but it also happens in real life, with a Californian man arrested in 2008 for fraudulently creating 58,000 accounts (see further reading, below).

Of course, that couldn’t happen in your business! Your internal processes are tight and your executives keep a close watch over potentially errant employees. Or so you think! The bad news is that every organisation is at risk of internal fraud and being complacent could prove costly, especially as fraud is just as likely to be committed by senior level employees.

Research from KPMG shows fraud among senior finance personnel and even chief executives is on the rise, with board members now accounting for almost a fifth (18%) of all business fraud. The analysis shows that the typical fraudster is male, aged 36 to 45, holds a senior position in finance and has worked for their company for more than a decade.

So, do you still feel confident about your people and processes? Maybe your current processes will help identify the bad apples? Don’t be so sure, with KPMG’s research also revealing that the exploitation of weak controls increased as a proportion of fraud from 49% in 2007 to 74% this year.

It is crucial, then, that organisations re-focus on fraud detection and prevention technologies to help reduce the risk of internal fraud. The best techniques work in tandem with your existing systems, providing an automated and user-friendly means to identify unusual activity.

One such example includes Advanced Business Solutions’ recently released Forensix software, a cutting edge approach to fraud detection that also helps identify collaborative fraud. While individual fraud is significant, errant employees often work in teams and Forensix has been specially developed to detect such tactics.

While the poor economic climate might be one explanation for employee fraud, it is certainly no excuse. Implementing the right fraud detection systems must be a priority, and will help to ensure that your organisation is protected from unscrupulous employees.

Further reading

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/201252/hacker-takes-50-000-a-few-cents-at-a-time

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/topic/practice/kpmg-highlights-fraud-sen
ior-management-level/507389

Preventing #fraud with robust technologies and processes is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The rise of big data is being pushed by a confluence of consumer, cloud and social technologies. Individuals can now use mobile technologies to access crucial knowledge on the go and to make the type of quick decisions that equal the difference between success and failure in a tight economy.

But there is an area where quick decision-making is even more important. So important, in fact, that it could really make the difference between life and death. While business analytics software is often associated with financial information, such as turnover, sales and outstanding debt, big data is increasingly being used in healthcare for the delivery of smarter patient care.

With the impending NHS cuts looming large, public sector executives will have to use analytics to make tough decisions about how smaller budgets can be spent increasingly wisely. The need for big data in healthcare, then, just got bigger.

And the figures can be startling. Evidence from consultant McKinsey (see further reading, below) suggests that the United States healthcare sector could create more than $300bn in value every year by using big data creatively to drive efficiency and quality. The good news is that leading edge organisations in the UK are already taking action to make the most of big data with regards to smarter patient care.

Take NHS Wakefield District, which has invested in a comprehensive business intelligence (BI) solution from Advanced Business Solutions (Advanced). Since introducing Advanced’s technology in January 2010, NHS Wakefield District has been able to cut hours from the generation of critical, decision-supporting reports.

Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust has more recently invested in flexible business intelligence and data warehousing technologies from Advanced Business Solutions. An Integrated Information Centre is planned to go-live in early 2013 and will enable the Trust to enhance the services it delivers to 1.6 million people.

So, healthcare organisations in the UK are already looking at how analytics can improve patient care delivery. With the amount of data being generated only set to increase, the decision to implement analytics technologies now will help Trusts embrace future challenges with confidence.

Further reading:

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/big_data/

Being smart about patient care delivery is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Payroll World is one of the UK’s leading payroll magazines and the awards ceremony will take place at the Hilton London Bridge Hotel in London on November 16th, 2011. 

Advanced Business Solutions will join around 300 professionals from the payroll sector, and awards will be presented to teams and individuals who demonstrate their professionalism, pioneering efforts and commitment to improving the reputation of the payroll department.

To make the final of these prestigious awards, ABS had to demonstrate success in one or more of the following areas:

• Significant cost savings / business benefits to clients
• Customer satisfaction including client testimonials
• Innovative client solutions. 

So let’s hope we can raise another celebratory glass next month!

On a roll…. is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment