Here Finance Monthly hears from Andrew Hayden, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Winshuttle, who discusses the key accounting processes behind a successful digital transformation.

According to analyst group IDC, worldwide spend on the hardware, software and services that enable business process automation will surpass $2.1 trillion in the next four years.

Financial accounting is one business function notorious for manual and error-prone processes within Accounts Payable (AP), Accounts Receivable (AR) and General Ledger (GL). These functions are often targeted ‘low hanging fruit’ for companies to start their automation journey and prove the benefits of automation to other parts of the business.

1. Speeding up journal entries

Manually entering data through the SAP Graphical User Interface (GUI) is not only tedious and time consuming,  but it can also often lead to errors – and that means costly rework. SAP-enabled workbooks eliminate the need for manual data entry into SAP. This enables them to get their work done faster and with fewer errors and frees up more time to understand and describe anomalies or work on other high-value tasks.

2. Reduce invoicing traffic jams

At month end, AP and AR teams can usually be found with stacks of invoices on their desks, or furiously entering never-ending quantities of data into the ERP system. Creating and paying invoices is the kind of repetitive, high-volume, and time-sensitive activity that is ripe for automation.

Instead of manually entering supplier invoices or creating customer invoices via the SAP GUI, AP and AR clerks can use SAP-enabled Excel workbooks powered by Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to clear their invoicing backlogs and stay on top of incoming work. This will enable them to deal with PO and non-PO invoices more efficiently, leading to more on-time payments, fewer invoicing errors and supplier enquiries, and ultimately improved supplier relationships.

3. Improve master data accuracy

The timeliness and accuracy of financial accounting operations depend on the master data being correct. Errors or omissions in customer or supplier master records can delay invoicing or payments and lead to problems that are costly and time consuming to fix.

Automating this process enables the finance team to quickly create or update master data using SAP-enabled Excel workbooks or web forms.

4. Improve compliance across key business processes

The data entry process can be complicated if multiple people in an organisation need to supply or approve data, which can often be necessary to comply with strict business procedures. Automation can help here too. For example, it’s possible to build a capital expense request solution that routes a web form to the right approver based on the amount of the request and company code.

5. Spend less time preparing for audits

External and internal audits are a fact of life for any accounting team and preparing for them doesn’t have to be stressful or time-consuming.  An Excel-based solution can be created that can quickly extract any data from SAP that auditors may want to see—for example, invoices over £250,000. This type of automation not only reduces audit preparation time but can also reduce the time external auditors spend on site and consequently audit costs.

In addition to greater productivity and efficiency, organisations can expect greater data accuracy and improved compliance with internal and external procedures and regulations through automation.  And when staff no longer need to perform mundane, repetitive tasks and can instead focus on more strategic projects, morale improves, and more value is delivered to the business.

Choosing a career path within Finance & Accountancy can be a daunting experience for new graduates. The sector is vast and there are various options depending on one’s ambition and career aspirations. From my experience, there is no ‘best’ career route, but there are a number of options that can help give Finance & Accountancy candidates the springboard and experience needed to be hugely successful within the sector. Whatever career path graduates decide to take, they will be required to study towards a professional qualification (ACCA, CIMA, ACA) so it is beneficial to know what route is most useful and why.

A good grounding will open up doors throughout a candidate’s career

It is very hard to say what job roles are best within Finance & Accountancy because this would be based on the individual aspirations of each graduate in question. Each path will suit a different skill set and type of candidate, and it takes experience and basic training for candidates to decide what niche they want to specialise in. In my opinion, graduates need to fully understand the finance sector before they can decide what their dream job may be. For example, some people may wish to become the future CFO of an FTSE listed business, and others may be driven by a certain charity, each of which is very different, and it is hard to determine what career choice is best without a good understanding of the basics.

For that reason, we generally do not discuss achieving specific roles with students or recent graduates, but instead, steer them towards gaining a good Finance & Accountancy qualification within Practice or Industry. People that have gained a solid understanding of the finance sector early on, and have a background in either Practice or Industry will be in a very strong position throughout their career. Candidates will be able to transition into their dream job/sector once they have learnt what the role of a finance professional involves.

The first and best career choice, in my opinion, is securing a graduate position or entry-level role within one of the Big 4 Accountancy Practice firms - Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG - or a well-recognised firm within the top 10.

The best career option for graduates within the Finance & Accountancy sector

Finance & Accountancy graduates we work with at Sellick Partnership are always ambitious individuals looking for a role that can offer them fast progression. They generally also strive for a long and varied career, and there are two routes that I believe offer what all of them should consider, regardless of what sector or area of finance they want to end up working within in the future.

The first and best career choice, in my opinion, is securing a graduate position or entry-level role within one of the Big 4 Accountancy Practice firms - Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG - or a well-recognised firm within the top 10. Training through a respected Practice firm means that candidates will automatically go down the ACA route which is widely recognised as the most prestigious qualification within the sector.

From my experience, candidates that are ACA qualified and have experience within a top 10 firm will have much better career opportunities and can command the highest salaries on the market. It only takes a bit of research to realise that the majority of Finance Directors within FTSE-listed businesses have all gone down the technical ACA Practice route. For that reason, this is most certainly the route for any ambitious candidates that have their sights set on a leading finance role within a large and highly respected business.

It will be no surprise that these roles are incredibly competitive. For example, PwC usually have around 2,000 graduate and internship roles in the UK and often receive more than 40,000 applications, while KPMG receive up to 20,000 applications for its 1,000 vacancies. It is therefore vital that candidates are switched on and perform exceptionally well throughout the application process. It is also important to remember that the Big 4 look at the whole person and are often impressed by candidates who do extraordinary things outside of their academic life, such as volunteering or sector relevant internships.

PwC usually have around 2,000 graduate and internship roles in the UK and often receive more than 40,000 applications, while KPMG receive up to 20,000 applications for its 1,000 vacancies.

An alternative route for highly ambitious graduates

Big 4 roles are hugely competitive, and rejection should not be taken personally. Instead, I would urge candidates to use the application experience to their advantage and think of alternative options. A lot of the graduates I work with set their sights on a Big 4 role when instead they should be casting the net a little bit wider. A good second option is a similar graduate position within Industry. We are witnessing an increasing number of Industry organisations – such as AJ Bell, Manchester Airport Group, Marks & Spencer and The Cooperative Group – promoting their graduate schemes, so this is fast becoming a great career choice for ambitious graduates looking for a fast-paced and rewarding career within the sector.

Candidates entering the profession this way will generally study CIMA or ACCA qualifications and will learn the trade from within Industry from day one. This route is a good choice for graduates that like variation as it gives candidates exposure across multiple areas of finance. It also gives them a more rounded knowledge of accountancy and allows them to develop commercial skills early on. Graduates starting out within Industry will learn how businesses operate and learn first-hand how important a finance function is to the success and profitability of a company.

A successful career within Finance & Accountancy takes drive and determination to build

Regardless of the route into the Finance & Accountancy sector, the journey to qualifying and success will be down to a person’s own determination to succeed. The prospects for driven young people are excellent, with structured career progression and management opportunities often arising within two years after qualifying, however, the journey will be challenging and will require a huge amount of commitment. Any candidate that is considering a career within Finance & Accountancy needs to be aware of this, and ensure it is the right career choice for them. Graduates that are prepared and succeed can expect to enjoy high earning potential, flexibility, room for growth and job security for years to come.

If you are graduating soon and would like more advice on the right career choice for you we would be delighted to help. Feel free to get in touch with Martin or a member of the team at Sellick Partnership directly by calling 0161 834 1642.

If you want to enjoy a healthy annual profit margin and long-term success in your industry, you must take control of your cashflow. Here are four financial management mistakes your business must avoid.

1. No Emergency Fund

An emergency fund could help to keep your business afloat during a difficult time in your industry or when you received an unexpected bill. To ensure your company is never faced with financial hardship, aim to save a minimum of three months’ worth of corporate expenses, which could ensure your company’s survival should an issue arise.

2. Unnecessary Business Expenses

Many business owners believe they need to make large expenses to separate their brand from their rivals. As a result, they might pay a significant sum for the latest technologies, office equipment, or staff salaries.

It is, however, a smarter approach to adopt a more frugal mindset. For example, invest in second-hand products, haggle with suppliers, and find an affordable lease for your office or building space.

Never spend a penny more than you need to, even when your company is generating a superb return on its investment. By running a lean business, you’ll have more money available to overcome a financial obstacle.

3. Avoiding Insurance

The right insurance policy could help your business to make a swift recovery following onsite damage or compensation claims. Yet, many companies make the mistake of not choosing the right coverage to suit their specific needs.

There a wide range of options to suit different companies’ needs, such as business insurance, cyber and data risk insurance, and employers’ liability insurance. It is, therefore, important to consider the potential risks your organisation might face and to find an insurance policy to match.

If you fail to invest in the right insurance policy, your business could be liable for a considerable amount of money, should a client make a claim against you. For example, if you regularly provide professional advice and services to clients, you should learn more about professional indemnity insurance as well as public liability insurance. Reputable providers such as Hiscox can instantly provide coverage of up to £10 million with both professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance so that your company aren’t caught out, with flexible policies tailored to your needs.

4. Failing to Budget

Many businesses are guilty of failing to budget each month, but it could be critical to your company’s success and survival. It ultimately helps a business owner to maintain a tight control of their finances, as they will know exactly how much money they will need to spend each month and where it is going.

Without a budget in place, you could fail to account for your tax obligations, insurance premiums, office expenses and more. If you spend too much, you may then need to apply for a business loan or run up debt on your credit card if you urgently need cash to pay for a debt repayment or corporate expense.

The analysis also found that, out of the 10 most common names on the executive boards, the first female name, Sarah, only comes in 10th and none of the boards have more women than men.

An online employee referral recruitment platform has analysed data from the top 25 accountancy firms in the UK and discovered that women make up just a quarter of the executive boards, however statistics show that women made up 44% of full-time accountants in the UK in 2014.

The research was conducted by Real Links, a platform that allows UK business owners and HR teams to access a potential talent pool of hundreds of thousands of employee referral candidates and creates anonymised profiles, ensuring there’s no unconscious bias when choosing candidates.

Real Links also discovered that only two of the top 25 firms boards are nearly equal in the gender split and a further six boards were only one third women. Four executive boards had no women on them at all.

When studying the data further, Real Links found that, out of the 10 most common names on the executive boards, Mark, David and Andrew are the three most common and the first female name, Sarah, only comes in at the 10^th spot. Furthermore, out of the top 20 most common names, only two female names appeared.

Sam Davies, CEO and Co-Founder of Real Links, said: “While statistics show that the accounting industry has a relatively even split between men and women, it seems women are still struggling to climb to the top of their firms.

“The statistics we discovered were shocking and show that inequality is still prevalent in the industry. Despite targets and policies designed to encourage more women into senior roles, progress has been slow. The recent gender gap reporting has shown that parity is still a long way off, so at Real Links, we think that employers need to consider anonymising recruitment to ensure candidates are chosen on experience rather than being subject to any unconscious bias.

“The top 25 accountancy firms need to ensure they’re leading by example to try and close the gender split at the most senior levels in their industry.”

(Source: Real Links)

Auditors have become punching bags for governments that have struggled to respond to the aftermaths of the financial crisis. Anger and distrust remains in the public domain. There is little sense of accountability for misconduct for executives or their intermediaries. The few trials against individuals have resulted in little to no jail time. Intermediaries such as bankers have gone largely unscathed.

The weaknesses in capitalism have never been felt with such intensity, so raw and painful. We are wrestling with issues of inequality, with dwindling expectations or hopes for more shared prosperity. Capitalism is rightfully under attack for delivering uneven prosperity and leaving so many behind. There are important voices in business such as Warren Buffett and Larry Fink who have been calling for more responsible leadership and investing to address the shortcomings. Amidst these daunting challenges, auditors present an easy target for governments to signal accountability and reform.

We must resist following myopic and uninformed views. Reforms are needed to make capitalism more effective. Audit reforms won’t prevent bad judgements in business or avoid governance and business collapses. The failure rates in auditing are extremely low in comparison to the number of audit opinions issued every day. That is not to say that processes within audit firms could not be improved, as identified from various reviews. But true audit failures – those where audit opinions missed material frauds and such failures led to business collapses – are exceptionally rare. Simply put, material accounting frauds are rare events and this has not changed in the last decade.

The weaknesses in capitalism have never been felt with such intensity, so raw and painful.

The limitations of financial reporting will inevitably remain and therefore the probability of future business failures occurring may not necessarily change by altering the audit market. Specifically, accounting is reliant on the historical cost convention and mark-to-market adjustments, based on rules set internationally. Additionally, the ‘expectation’ gap for auditors to be guardians against fraud will largely remain. When management and third-party collusion is involved, fraud, corruption, and money laundering will remain increasingly difficult to detect for an organisation’s internal controls and the best auditors.

The work ahead

Although questions remain about how to best implement reforms, it is clear that there are valid trust and credibility issues affecting the accounting profession that need to be studied and addressed. There is legitimate public anger and frustration from corporate failures. It is correct to demand that executives involved in misconduct (or who are wilfully blind to it) are held personally accountable and face prosecution. The same should apply to those that facilitate misconduct as intermediaries or gatekeepers.

Business and auditing failures have contributed to the erosion of trust and it is incumbent on all of us to restore trust in both business and its gatekeepers. The profession can and should take further steps to improve audit quality.

To find effective solutions, it is important to apply a more holistic approach and analyse concerns, issues and solutions in the context of the entire business and reporting ecosystem. Using auditors as punching bags today is distracting from the important reform work ahead to address the shortcomings of our current form of capitalism.

About the author:

José Hernandez is the CEO of Ortus Strategies and the author of the new book Broken Business: Seven Steps to Reform Good Companies Gone Bad (published by Wiley), which is available now in hardback and ebook.

Website: http://www.ortusstrategies.com/

With the enforcement of IFRS 16 ahead of us, as of January 2019, Nick Turner, Country Manager UK & Ireland at Anaplan, discusses with Finance Monthly the potential opportunities therein.

There’s nothing quite like ringing in the new year. Along with the promises of fresh starts and renewed perspectives, it’s that time of the year that we can set—and dare not forget—lofty goals to achieve in the 365-days ahead.

Effective 1st January 2019, IFRS 16 marks one of the first significant changes to lease accounting standards in 40 years.

The new year represents more than an annual reset button and it ushers in more than new beginnings. It also brings deadlines. This rings especially true for corporate finance teams this year, as the IFRS 16 deadline looms.

Effective 1st January 2019, IFRS 16 marks one of the first significant changes to lease accounting standards in 40 years. If they haven’t already made the adjustments, businesses now have a very limited time to ensure that future accounting processes will meet compliance.

Unfortunately, for companies addressing these changes through spreadsheets and aging technology, time might be ticking even faster because these manual tools can turn such operations into a lengthy, burdensome, and complex undertaking.

What IFRS 16 means for businesses

Beginning on the first day of the year, new standard IFRS 16 will be implemented by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB). This standard will impact company balance sheets and how many businesses that rent or lease will operate in the future.

The changes are designed to make it easier for outsiders to compare the performance of different companies.

The new IFRS 16 requirements will eliminate nearly all off-balance-sheet accounting for lessees. Further, it will impact commonly used metrics such as EBITDA and gearing ratios. Why? The changes are designed to make it easier for outsiders to compare the performance of different companies.

Although the changes in performance metrics will make it easier to compare and contrast, they may also affect credit ratings, borrowing costs, and even stakeholders’ perception of a company. This makes it vital that companies understand and prepare for the effects of this new leasing standard.

Technology that turns arduous into effortless

Even though time is winding down on the IFRS 16 deadline, businesses still have an opportunity to implement a solution that can quickly fulfill its requirements—and many are turning to cloud-based, Connected Planning solutions.

Adhering to the new standard with spreadsheets and legacy tools quickly turns burdensome; in contrast, Connected Planning technology supports rapid implementation, easily interfaces with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) databases, and calculates large volumes of data in real time. Connected Planning gives decision makers instant insight into how to optimise their company’s lease management strategy in context of the new regulations.

The deadline for IFRS 16 approaches and businesses have to determine the best way to comply with the new leasing standard soon. Connected Planning technology offers a way to tackle the complexity of the standard with ease.

IFRS 16 – a new Accounting standard as per 01.01.2019. GRENKE gives you an overview of the main changes for lessees applying IFRS 16.

A traditional industry like finance and accounting doesn’t often go through many changes. However, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation, technology is having – and will continue to have – a huge impact on every business; changing the way people work within an organisation. And, finance departments are not exempt from this change. Below Andy Bottrill, Regional VP at BlackLine, discusses the future of finance and accounting with Finance Monthly.

Whether finance departments like it or not, technology is going to become part of the accounting process. And despite 71% of workers admitting to still using spreadsheets to manually carry out month-end tasks, 80% of businesses are expected to be ready to adopt AI by 2020.

So why should today’s accountants look forward to, and not fear, the future and technology?

Automating Admin

Companies have already reported that 75% of intercompany transactions are automated, and this is only set to increase over the next 10 years; with 45% of individuals predicting invoicing will cease to exist by 2030.

Although the prospect of investing in automation may seem negative to many accountants at face value, they need to consider the long term benefits it can bring.

Workers must realise that technology will actually positively impact them. For example, removing mundane tasks such as admin data entry – automation can do this far quicker than a human, with a much higher accuracy rate. Using this technology, accountants are seeing manual admin tasks disappear, giving them time back to do tasks of greater value, such as financial analysis.

Augmenting the Accountant

A large concern around the future of finance and accounting is that robots will result in redundancies. But many fail to realise technology won’t wipe out jobs, but instead augment existing roles.

In 10 years’ time, the accountant we know today will no longer exist and instead, an accountant with a completely new skillset will have evolved. Technology is transforming employees’ roles, allowing them to transition from accountants who report last month’s numbers to reporters and analysts who deliver real-time data and predictive analytics.

Removing mundane tasks from day-to-day activities frees up time for more rewarding tasks in the finance department and others that require help – augmenting accountancy roles. Having the opportunity to work in other departments or take on other areas of expertise augments the skillset that accountants have.

Augmenting the accountant role in this way not only boosts job prospects within the workplace, but makes employees much more employable in the future.  Making it an opportunity accountants should embrace.

Removing bad habits

Many organisations pride themselves on “best practices”, and don’t stray away from what they have always known. Sometimes, however, adhering to outdated traditional processes can do more harm than good and that is seen within the finance department.

Financial departments are known more than any to practice the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. However, technology is changing this and removing these somewhat bad habits from day-to-day tasks and instead replacing them with new “best practices” through the use of technology.

Efficient Processing

Amid the personal benefits technology can bring to businesses, the practical savings are just as important – especially for C-suite level executives.

Imagine it’s the year 2028. The CEO questions the finance department on the likelihood of being able to acquire a desirable start up. In response, the CFO brings up real-time figures on her iPad and analyses them with her team to evaluate the potential options. She then emails the CEO their forecast: the business can afford to put in a competitive offer.

And while this evaluation is happening, the machine learning programme installed in the finance department has spotted and flagged a suspicious transaction that looks like possible fraud. The team are able to investigate this straight away, instead of waiting for auditors to discover it. Through this continuous accounting, businesses gain better insights and minimise mistakes.

Increased Sector Reputation

Whilst it’s important to look forward to the internal benefits technology will bring, it is equally important to understand the external impact.

When it comes to quarterly reporting, many finance departments have been scrutinised for incorrect data. But the technology available to finance departments today is helping reduce, if not eliminate, this from happening.

By using real-time data analysis, automation and machine learning businesses can reduce the number of reconciliations required and decrease the margin of error. As a result, more accurate financial results and closing data is produced.

This not only increases the reputation for individual businesses, but for the sector as a whole. Instead, accountants can promote their profession in a positive light. As businesses look to be the best in their industry, enhancing reputation is critical – and technology can certainly help do that.

Accounting departments in UK businesses have continued to shift towards digital practices, but more than four in 10 (41%) continue to rely on paper-based processes, according to new independent research.

The 'Changing trends in the purchasing processes of UK businesses' report, commissioned Invu, revealed a slight reduction in the number of businesses relying on paper-based accounting in the last few years.

The 41% in this latest report is a slight fall from the 45% of business finance decision makers who admitted to relying on paper-based accounting in 2016.

But despite the trend towards digital, the report revealed a significant number of finance bosses who admitted that their company was struggling to move fully to a digital based model.

More than half, 56%, said that a paper process was still used at some point within the purchasing process in their business.

Within accounts payable departments in these UK businesses, 16% of finance bosses said their company had not introduced any digital processes at all - relying on totally paper - while nearly a quarter 24% relied on manual scanning and storing of documents.

Ian Smith, General Manager and Finance Director at Invu, said the findings showed a welcome trend of redundancy of paper-based accounting, but said some businesses were still putting themselves at risk by continuing to rely solely on paper.

"Businesses are often dealing with dozens, if not hundreds of invoices and payment enquiries on a daily basis and trying to manage and juggle these requests and demands using paper and filing cabinets can easily lead to finance departments being overwhelmed.

"Delays commonly arising from manual processing of supplier invoices can result in a business being unaware of its future payment commitments - and then it is only a short step further before they end up in severe financial difficulties.

"Given the current focus in the UK on productivity it is frankly staggering that so many companies won't let go of their legacy paper-based systems and free their accounting teams up to add value to the business rather than drown in paper work.

"In a rapidly changing world this report shows a welcome shift towards the use of technology. I’m concerned for the future of the 41% of businesses that appear to be lagging behind”

(Source: Invu)

Tajudeen Akande is Senior Partner at PKF Nigeria (PKF Professional Services) and a member of PKF International - a global network of legally independent accounting/business advisory firms bound together by a shared commitment to quality, integrity and the creation of clarity in a complex regulatory environment. Here, Mr. Akande tells us about the transformation of the tax system in Nigeria, as well as the challenges of providing tax advice in the African country.

What would you say are the challenges of providing effective accounting and tax advice in Nigeria?

The main challenges of providing effective accounting and tax services in Nigeria include:

• The Economic situation of the country, which has constrained people’s ability to pay for professional service, having to, in most cases, resort to use of quacks and unqualified people.
• Regulators – Professional accountants in Nigeria are regulated by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) as well as two professional accountancy organisations operating in the jurisdiction—the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), and of course there is the Chartered Institute of Taxation. The multiplicity of bodies saddled with the responsibility of regulating the practice of accounting and taxation is a challenge to practitioners in terms of proper monitoring and discipline of erring members.
• Challenges in the area of tax practice include:
• Lack of clarity on taxation powers of each level of government (There are three tiers of Government in Nigeria);
• Insufficient information available to taxpayers on tax compliance requirements thus creating uncertainty and non-compliance;
• Use of aggressive and unorthodox methods for tax collection by tax authorities;
• Failure by tax authorities to honour refund obligations to taxpayers.

How has the tax system in Nigeria transformed throughout the years?

Nigeria’s tax system has evolved a lot over the years - from the pre-colonial era to the latest tax reform codified into a National Tax Policy.

In the traditional Nigerian society, the formalisation of taxation was practically non-existent. Citizens were only exposed to a variety of levies as dictated by paramount rulers and different traditional rulers created their different forms of taxes and levies.

To achieve conformity and uniformity in taxation, Raisman Commission was set up in 1958 by the colonial Government, which advised that basic income tax principles should be introduced and standardised across the country, which was accepted by the Government. Thus, direct taxation was incorporated into the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, after which the Companies Income Tax Act and Income Management Act of 1961 were established. This marked the foundation of Nigeria’s modern tax laws.

As a result of the increasing complexities in commercial transactions and glaring issues relating to practical interpretations of the laws, the Acts were repealed and reenacted giving rise to Companies Income tax Act CAP C21 LFN 2004 and the Personal Income tax Act CAP P8 LFN 2004, as well as other tax regulations which have changed the face of tax administration and practice in Nigeria.

Nigerian taxes are currently administered through the three levels of Government, as outlined in the Taxes and Levies (Approved List for Collection) Act (Amendment) Order of 2015.

The National Tax Policy (NTP) was first published in 2012, as part of the efforts to entrench a robust and efficient tax system in Nigeria. This was reviewed in 2016 in response to the rapidly changing commercial environment and persistent low tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio.

Recently, Nigerian tax administration has been reshaped and expanded to focus on international tax. Various measures have been put in place to curb base erosion and profit shifting, so as to improve government revenue. Some of these measures include Transfer Pricing Regulations, Double Tax Treaties and Multilateral Agreements. Also, the tax payment system has been automated. Tax payers can now pay, generate receipts and even file tax returns and obtain Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) online.

What are PFK Professional Services’ philosophy and top priorities towards its clients? How has this evolved over the years?

PKF is a global family of entrepreneurial minds working together, pooling our collective resources, experience and skillsets to add significant value to clients. We combine our understanding of local regulations, international perspectives and grasp of niche markets to create a simple, seamlessly executed approach. When you engage with PKF, you can be confident that the work will be carried out by dedicated and experienced professionals. We know the importance of having teams who have real sector experience.

The PKF ethos is about working together. We believe in giving teams the same encouragement as the individuals within them. We pursue a philosophy of shared responsibility and shared success. The most distinctive feature of PKF practice is our attitude towards our clients. Our people are good at building and developing relationships. This means getting to know our client’s organisation to understand their long-term needs.

Website: https://www.pkf.com/pkf-offices/africa/nigeria/pkf-professional-services-ng-lagos/

More than two fifths (41%) of finance back-office processes could be automated in the next five years, a new study from global customer services provider Arvato CRM Solutions and management consulting firm A.T Kearney has found.

According to the new report, 41% of finance back-office processes are set to be performed by robots by 2023, with this figure rising to 53% within the next 10 years.

Implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is set to significantly boost firms’ productivity and efficiency, as bots are 20 times faster than humans with a 10% lower error rate. Subsequently, companies that adopt this technology, could potentially receive an ROI of between 300 and 1,000% over a three-year period.

It’s also predicted that the widespread roll-out of RPA solutions will result in an annual compound market growth of 50%, with the global market set to be worth $5billion by 2020.

New developments

The research also predicts that by 2023, RPA, with the help of cognitive capabilities, will be able to make automated decisions, and by 2028 robots will be able to carry out most back-office processes independently with minimal human intervention.

The new report, named ‘Robotic Process Automation: The impact of RPA on finance back-office processes’, interviewed more than 20 technology partners and players in the field of RPA, gathering together their view on the trends and developments within the sector.

Ben Warren, vice president of Digital Transformation at Arvato CRM, Global BPS, said: “RPA will revolutionize the finance back-office, as the new technology is more accurate, efficient and can work for longer hours, depending on demand.

“This can consequently help drive revenue for a business, streamlining processes and allowing employees to spend more time on higher value tasks.

“But although the benefits of automation can be great, it’s important that firms understand that to successfully utilize the technology they will need to invest.

“A full analysis of end-to-end systems and redesign of existing processes will be initially required, and companies will need to regularly review their processes as technology continues to evolve and develop over the coming decade.”

Dr. Florian Dickgreber, partner at A.T Kearney and co-author of the study, said: “Having transformed manufacturing, bots are now set to change processes in the service sector.

“We expect RPA, the automation of structured business processes, to take over more than half of all back-office processes over the next five to 10 years.”

(Source: Arvato CRM Solutions)

Three quarters of finance decision makers within UK businesses have admitted that their company could be susceptible to fraud because of poor accounts payable systems, according to a new report.

And 70% of finance decision makers also admitted that a failure to implement robust purchase order processing within their company was also putting them at severe risk from fraud.

In fact according to the ‘Changing trends in the purchasing processes of UK businesses’ report commissioned by document managing, accounts payable and purchasing solution provider Invu, less than a quarter (24%) of decision makers are ‘completely confident’ that they could prevent or detect fraud with their current systems.

The risk from fraud is also not limited by company size, according to the research, with 25% of large businesses and 30% of small companies harbouring some concerns about fraud due to weak processes and checks.

“Although we’ve seen a slight reduction in the amount of financial decision makers concerned about fraud, it is clear that concerns remain high within Britain’s business community and that not enough is being done to protect companies from becoming victims of fraud,” said Ian Smith, GM and Finance Director at Invu.

“Fraud is a huge problem for any business, with the results being potentially fatal. Automated processes, which can monitor purchase and payment processes, go a long way to prevent and detect these issues, but they are clearly not being deployed enough within UK businesses.”

(Source: Invu)