To move abroad and leave the US can be a life-changing decision and is of course a big step. To make this step happen, a lot of things need to be considered before you are actually settled in your host country. How should you apply for a visa? What about the visas of your family? How can you apply for rental property abroad? A lot of things need to be arranged locally, but for US citizens there is an extra requirement to consider which is often forgotten by US expats. This could result in an annoying administrative burden and a risk of being audited by the IRS. This article outlines why you should file, what to consider and how to file.
Specific IRS forms for Americans abroad
When you as a US citizen live abroad, all your foreign income should be reported on your form 1040 as usual. As you most likely also pay tax locally, form 1116 and form 2555 make it possible to reduce your US tax bill by claiming the Foreign Tax Credit or the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.
Different tax terminology
The tax terminology is very different from how it is in the US. Form 1116 and form 2555 use Foreign Tax Credit, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, Foreign Housing Exclusion, Physical Presence tests and many more. This does not make it easy to easily understand your return.
Tax software not supporting the expat forms
Most tax software providers do not support these specific forms as they are not specifically designed for the expat market, but more for the US domestic market. Even if the forms are supported, it is still difficult to complete as the tax terminology is different. However, there is some DIY US expat tax software designed specifically for the US expat market that can aid in quickly e-filing US tax returns with the IRS platform.
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Tax professionals not familiar with form 1116 and 2555
There is a good chance that your trusted tax professional is not familiar with the forms 1116 and form 2555 as they are specifically for Americans abroad.
How to file from abroad
These are the options you have as a US expat:
- Do it yourself and fill the forms 1116 and/or 2555 yourself.
- Use DIY software.
- Hire a US expat tax professional. This can easily cost you $500 or even more.
Conclusion
Clearly, you need to file your US taxes when living abroad. This is often forgotten and could result in unwanted hassle which you really just don’t want. A lot of Americans will owe no taxes, but still have the obligation to file. Just file, it is not that difficult to get your US taxes filed!
Also expect that these forms will be new to you and that different terminology will be used from that which you are used to. These new forms 1116 and form 2555 are often not supported by tax software and you should check whether your trusted tax professional is able to complete these forms.
When you have plans to move abroad, just research the options to make sure you pick the right fit to file your US taxes.
Business software producer Salesforce.cmo agreed on Tuesday to purchase work-focused chat service Slack for $27.7 billion in one of the biggest tech mergers in recent years.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, hailed the deal as a “match made in heaven.”
“Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world,” he said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes.”
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, also welcomed the acquisition: “Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can’t wait to get going.”
News that a potential purchasing agreement could be struck between the two companies emerged days ago, though details of the deal were not known until this week.
Aside from being the largest purchase Salesforce has ever made, the deal also represents a significant merger in the tech field as a whole, comparable with Microsoft’s $27 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016 and exceeded only by IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2018. Further, it provides Salesforce with the ability to integrate Slack with its Customer 360 product, creating new avenues for sales and marketing with Slack’s expanding customer base.
It also marks a new development in an ongoing feud with Microsoft, which has been competing with Slack using the Teams app included in Office 365. Teams utilises a number of the same features as Slack’s six-year-old application, and in July Slack filed a complaint in the European Union accusing Microsoft of illegally bundling Teams with its Office 365 suite in order to block its removal by customers who may prefer using Slack.
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Microsoft’s software have also competed with several of Salesforce’s flagship products, having introduced a line of B2B tools aimed at helping other companies manage their relationships with customers.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives called the Slack acquisition a “now or never” purchase for the Salesforce CEO. “For Benioff, this is all about Microsoft,” he said.
eLearning has rapidly found its way towards becoming a significant part of many organisations. There are many individuals and organisations that are now delivering elearning content to their paying audience. This is where an authoring tool comes in the picture.
An authoring tool is a digital solution that helps you create digital content. The content here could be of any type, from text-based to graphics, from web content to videos. It is important for you to choose an authoring tool that aligns well with your organisational goals as it can dramatically impact the experience of the learners or your audience.
The chances of an authoring tool being more problematic rather than being a solution are quite high. Thus, whether you are planning to replace your existing eLearning authoring tools or to invest in a new one for the first time ever, make sure you keep the following pointers in your mind.
Usability
First and foremost comes the usability of the authoring tool. When your authoring tool is easy to use, it can turn out to be an extremely cost-effective investment. Not only in terms of money, but in terms of time as well.
This is because with the help of an easy-to-use authoring tool, the dependency of your subject matter experts on your tech-savvy developers will dramatically decrease. They won’t have to wait for the availability of developers any longer. This will reduce the time of content creation and gradually increase the number of courses that are being published by the experts.
Scalability
The scaling up of the workforce is one of the major advantages of an authoring tool and, thus, scalability features are one thing that you should always check for in your software. This tool is specifically beneficial for the companies that are scattered across various locations.
With an authoring tool that is scalable, you can easily create content on an urgent basis. Since this software is cloud-based, you can utilise the knowledge, skills and expertise of your subject matter experts that are situated in various locations across the globe.
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Design Flexibility
If we could give one tip for creating any eLearning course, it would be to make sure you are doing your branding right. After all, it is all about that one brand. Thus, when you are creating your course, you would want to take care of certain brand elements such as your logo placement, the colours that you will be using, the fonts that work well for your subject, and more.
To make sure that you can streamline your branding, there are now authoring tools that allow you to work on a particular theme or template. With these templates, you can fix logo position, background colors, text blocks, etc. and lock them in place. This way, even if you have multiple people working on developing the course for you, you will always have a fixed standard that they will automatically follow, at least in terms of design.
Device Capability
One feature that you should look for in your authoring tool is its capability of working on different devices. When you offer content that can be written once and then executed on a variety of other devices such as tablets, mobile phones, and laptops, that creates value. This is because this shows that you are keeping the convenience and ease of your audience in mind. This will help increase your audience exponentially.
When learners don’t have any restrictions on devices or location and can execute their sessions as and when they feel like, it can be a real game changer.
Conclusion
eLearning authoring tools are now becoming a huge part of corporates. Gone are the days when people preferred using off-the-shelf content. They now want to execute and receive content that has been tailored as per the relevance. It is best to look for certain features in your authoring tool before you make the purchase to ensure it proves to be effective.
Even in small businesses where there are no full-fledged procurement departments, implementing spend management is still very important. To effectively implement this, you will need to collate, maintain, categorise, and evaluate spend data. The goal is often to regulate compliance and improve efficiency. Are you saddled with the responsibility of implementing spend management? Here are five effective ways you can do it:
Perform a Detailed Spend Analysis
To implement spend management effectively, the first thing you need to do is perform a comprehensive spend analysis. Through this, you will have a better understanding of what you are spending and where to make changes. The analysis will help you identify key suppliers and savings opportunities you can target. You will also be able to minimise risk and expense that come with non-compliant or underperforming vendors.
Streamline Payment Methods
A standard procurement department can easily track and manage all purchasing activity. In the absence of this, staying on top of all employee spend can be very challenging. A simple solution will be to streamline payment methods. Finding a way to feed all spend data automatically into one company bill will make things a lot easier, and it will also improve accuracy.
Define the Approval Process
In addition to streamlining payment methods, you need to define and clarify the approval process with everyone involved in procurement in your organisation. Every employee that can spend on behalf of the company must know who to approach for approval, and there must never be any form of conflict. When everyone understands the approval process and respects it, procurement will be less frustrating. Mistakes will be minimised, and no one will have to cut corners.
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Use E-Procurement Software
There are several spend management and e-procurement software that can help you implement the process. Some of these platforms can be integrated as an all-in-one solution or as individual platforms that will make your work easier and more accurate. With this software, you can effectively capture tail spend data and get the information in a comprehensive form in your dashboard. From the data you receive, it will be easier to make decisions and implement changes.
Invest In Education and Training
If you have a procurement department in your organisation, investing in education and training for every member will be beneficial in many ways. Even if you don’t have a standard procurement department, you can train everyone involved in procurement. This is even more important if you have integrated an e-procurement software. When every person on the team is well-trained and on the same page, implementing spend management becomes easier.
Endnote
Spend management is important to keep your business or organization profitable. Fortunately, you can improve the process by performing a comprehensive spend analysis, streamlining payment methods, and using a management software. For effective results, it is important that you do it right. Implementing the effective methods discussed above will help you achieve your objectives.
Many forex traders enter the market because of the low entry costs and the fact that the market stays open round the clock. However, most traders leave soon because they suffer losses. Therefore, we are going to suggest five ways in which you can avoid losses and stay in the game while trading forex.
Homework Is Essential
People think that since getting into forex trading is easy, they can afford to ignore due diligence. They do not realize that forex knowledge is the key aspect of successful trading.
Even though the major part of learning comes from the experience of live trading, a trader must know about everything related to the forex market, especially the geological and political aspects that affect the currencies. Forex traders should therefore use practice accounts before they start live trading. Some of the things to learn from practice accounts are:
- Techniques of analysis
- Money management procedures
- Control leverage amount
- Maintain a trading journal
- Treat forex trading as a business
- Understand the tax implications
- Formulate a trading plan
Find a Reputable Forex Broker
As with any financial industry, forex trading has its share of fraudulent brokers. Therefore, make sure that you start your trading with a reliable and honest forex broker. Look for a broker that provides a 100% deposit bonus when you trade with them. They should provide you with trading tools that are convenient to use.
As with any financial industry, forex trading has its share of fraudulent brokers.
There must be transparency about the commissions, and you should be able to make the withdrawals in any currency of your preference. International Financial Services Commission (IFSC) monitors the forex broker's operations to ensure that they follow the legislation and framework of regulations. That means it is safe and reliable to trade with a broker that abides by the IFSC rules.
Keep Your Charts Clean
You might feel tempted to use several of the analytical tools offered by forex trading platforms. Even though most of them are meant to provide you insights into the forex market, using too many of them can clutter your charts and confuse you.
Therefore, use one tool for each analysis, like a volatility indicator or an oscillator. Using multiple tools for the same indications can offer opposing suggestions and become counterproductive.
Remove any analysis techniques or tools that you do not use regularly. Pay attention to how the charts and the dashboard look when you select the tools. Use contrasting elements that are easy to interpret so that it becomes easy for you to work. It will also enable you to respond appropriately to changing market scenarios.
Keep Your Trading Account Safe
Most people concentrate on making profits while trading forex. However, it is also equally important to mitigate losses. Most experienced traders would tell you that you can enter at any price position and make some money. But what matters the most is to know when to get out of a trade before you start losing money.
Many people make the mistake of holding on to a losing trade in the hope of making up for their losses. However, you may end up losing more money than you had originally imagined. That is why you must set a limit to which you can handle the losses before you get out of the trade.
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You can also select a limit to the maximum loss you can endure in a day, beyond which there will be no further trading for your account until you choose to initiate it again.
Treat Your Trading Like a Business
When you start live trading, treat it like you would treat a business. Start with small amounts and build up your profits. Don't get tempted by lucrative trades and end up investing a lot in the early days of trading. You would not be able to anticipate the slippage accurately all the time, so play it safe. These are some suggestions to keep in mind while trading.
- Start with small amounts and build up gradually
- Control the amount of leverage
- Maintain the records of your trading every day
- Keep your emotions of losing and winning away from trading
- Know how to treat your trading for tax implications
The forex trading market looks lucrative to many people because they can start small, the market stays open round the clock, and they can get good leverage. But forex trading must be approached like a business with proper due diligence, practice, and precautions.
Choose a reliable forex broker to avoid legal hassles and avoid losses. You must also use efficient money management methods and clean charts to stay in the game and make profits.
There are various benefits of using CRM software. It gives more insight and provides more flexibility and agility to business owners than ever. The business owners must read about and understand about this software to gain a proper understanding of the benefits of using them in businesses. The inbuilt analytics and dashboards in CRM software help you centralise your data and get an accurate view of your business. The Microsoft dynamic 365 business central is one example of an integrated enterprise resource planning (EPR) and customer relationship management (CRM) by Microsoft.
CRM software helps you make smart decisions and take actions that drive your business to greater heights by improving your productivity and performance, and also enables you to build a stronger relationship with your customers. There are various benefits of using this application.
Some of the significant benefits of using this software are as follows:
Innovative solutions for the growth of your business
The essential advantage is the AI that analyses your data and gives you custom insight, reducing the need to sift through complex data and extrapolate useful information. The predictive forecasting gives you accurate projections while streamlining the planning. The AI also helps build a stronger relationship using conversation intelligence and identifying customer needs and market trends. The built-in coaching helps you identify risks beforehand, making you more proactive.
Improved systematisation between sales and marketing
The seamless tools in CRM applications help to improve coordination between sales and marketing, also providing you with promising leads. The ability to convert records by scanning business cards reduces manual efforts. Combining automation with technology gives both the users and the customers a pleasant experience. Most of such software integrates seamlessly with tools from Microsoft like Excel and Outlook. Survey insights, combined with your customer data, help you see the customer point of view.
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The digital selling interface
CRM interfaces allow you to focus on being productive using the integrated multichannel tools and by leveraging the AI for emphatic conversations. The interfaces have everything that one needs from a soft phone dialer to email templates. All this translates to less diverted attention and more productive efforts towards business.
Cloud insights
The system analyses the critical performance indicators of your organisation through artificial intelligence and presents this information to you. It helps you avoid shortcomings like inventory shortages for better service to your clients and better business. Essential information like available funding, sales and inventory are always available and up to date. All of this helps to reduce the costs of operation owing to the low maintenance costs of the infrastructure. The development tools help you expand the capabilities of the system quickly.
CRM software can be used on all devices, and it provides you with the same experience, whether on handheld devices or computers. On this interface, you have access to your customer information that helps you create sales and purchase orders. There are different levels of software for different business demand. Some of the best software for every business type are nimble, agile CRM, nutshell, streak, and Bitrix24. They will make your business more effective. Delegation of service tasks to readily available platforms facilitates greater comfort for businesses.
SoftBank has agreed to sell the UK-based Arm Holdings to US chipmaking company Nvidia for $40 billion, a statement released on Sunday confirmed.
As part of the acquisition – which represents the largest ever deal in the semiconductor industry – Nvidia will pay SoftBank $21.5 billion in stock and $12 billion in cash. A further $2 billion payment will be made upon signing, with the possibility of a further $5 billion payment in cash or stock if Arm’s performance reaches certain targets set by Nvidia.
Finally, an additional $1.5 billion in Nvidia stock will be paid to Arm employees. It is expected that SoftBank will own less than 10% of Nvidia once the transaction is completed, which may take as long as 18 months pending regulatory approval in the UK, the EU, China and the US.
If approved, the acquisition will transform Nvidia into a global influence in smartphone technology and cloud data centres, in addition to drastically expanding its already extensive portfolio of graphics chips.
Arm’s primary business is in licensing designs that other companies then turn into chips. Its licensees have shipped over 180 billion chips since its founding in 1990, and the company is becoming increasingly sought-after as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and other major tech firms ramp up their use of ARM chips. The flexibility of ARM’s technology has turned them into a competitor for Intel’s widely-used chips.
Nvidia said that it will “continue to operate [Arm’s] open-licensing model and customer neutrality while maintaining the global customer neutrality that has been foundational to its success,” in a move to assuage the concerns of regulators and the company’s powerful customers. Nvidia will also add its own technology to those licensed by Arm.
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Arm was also the subject of what was previously the largest deal in the semiconductor industry, when SoftBank purchased it in 2016 for $31.4 billion.
Simon Segars, chief executive of Arm, lauded the deal. “Arm and NVIDIA share a vision and passion that ubiquitous, energy-efficient computing will help address the world’s most pressing issues from climate change to healthcare, from agriculture to education,” he said in a statement.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son also expressed confidence in the acquisition. “NVIDIA is the perfect partner for Arm,” he said. “Joining forces with a world leader in technology innovation creates new and exciting opportunities for Arm.”
“This is a compelling combination that projects Arm, Cambridge and the UK to the forefront of some of the most exciting technological innovations of our time and is why SoftBank is excited to invest in Arm’s long-term success as a major shareholder in NVIDIA.”
What are the things keeping senior finance managers and executives awake at night? The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown have put many finance departments under even greater pressure than before. Mark Vivian, CEO at Claremont, describes to Finance Monthly how the growing demand for financial services can be met using cloud technology.
Organisations are under pressure to grow revenues and cut costs. Businesses need to be more agile than ever before in order to survive and thrive in today’s economy. There’s also the latest finance regulation (e.g. IFRS16) that needs to be adhered to, or legislative changes that need to be made (e.g. HMRC’s Furlough Scheme).
It’s important that the day-to-day running of the finance department can keep going too: invoices continue to be raised, and cash collected. Supplier invoices processed and paid. Employees paid correctly and on time.
Choosing the Right Finance System
When choosing the right finance system, there are number of important considerations businesses need to take into account. This will be largely centred around functionality and whether businesses can find a finance system that is part of a wider set of integrated business applications, such as HR, Payroll, and CRM. Oracle’s E-Business Suite is a great example of this.
As part of their functionality consideration, businesses will also need to consider their specific use cases. For example, is the requirement to have a finance system capable of supporting global organisations working in multiple territories, with multi-currencies and multi-languages, and also local country legislation?
Organisations also need to consider whether they are happy to adopt largely standard “best practice” business processes, which usually necessitates business change, or whether to use customisation to the standard product so that it reflects the way your business works.
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Ground to Cloud
Lots of organisations that we work with have a “Cloud First” strategy, and have “Ground to Cloud” initiatives, moving their key business systems from their own data centres into the cloud. “Cloud” is a ubiquitous term, but it has a number of different meanings. When we are considering choosing the best finance system, there are typically two main choices: cloud-based applications and infrastructure cloud.
Choosing a suite of cloud-based financial applications offers businesses the benefit of streamlining their IT environment and business processes; procured as SaaS, typically over a 3-year duration.
Choosing infrastructure cloud on the other hand allows you to move your on-premise applications from physical hardware to a cloud platform, replacing the typical arrangement of leasing hardware with the rental of infrastructure cloud. It has lots of benefits, not least the fact that under the old model, IT departments had to predict future business activity for the next 5 years and size up and purchase hardware for the next 5 years on that basis.
A move to cloud infrastructure provides a much more flexible arrangement, where compute and storage resources can be flexed up and down in tune with the organisation’s requirements, either in the long term, or perhaps on a seasonal basis if your business volume requires it.
Partnering with a Managed Services Provider
Whichever model you choose to use for your finance applications and services, it’s vital to use it correctly and get the most out of your investment. Using a complex piece of software is a bit like running a Formula 1 car. It requires a team of expert engineers, with differing specialities, working on it in order to optimise it and make it perform at its best. This is where partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) can make a big difference.
Whichever model you choose to use for your finance applications and services, it’s vital to use it correctly and get the most out of your investment.
A managed service provider can work alongside your internal finance and IT teams to do this:
- Firstly, they’ll provide “fix on fail” support through an Incident Management process, and this will typically be against a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for both responding to and resolving the Incidents.
- Next is Problem Management; getting to the root causes of Incidents that are encountered and resolving them so that they don’t reoccur.
- An MSP will also help you with Change Management, dealing with all of those modifications that will come up over time as your business changes, or you have to comply with changing legislation.
- Finally, a good MSP will be proactive, and make suggestions for how you can optimise your financial applications, perhaps utilising new functionality to improve efficiency and save money.
We saw a great example of helping a Managed Services customer with critical and urgent Change work earlier in the year, when The National Trust came to us wanting to take advantage of the government furlough initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic to support their staff and protect their organisations as their sites began to close. We were able to configure their payroll solution to meet their requirements within a very short space of time.
The end product was deployed rapidly, automatically calculating the rebate amount for each employee, gave each employee a professional standard of notification, and required minimal payroll intervention. The first payroll runs of the month began on the 16th April and by the 25th April the National Trust had successfully processed over 14,000 employees through their payrolls.
Bringing it Together
The pace of change is increasing, putting finance departments under greater pressure than before and COVID-19 has presented an extra challenge over recent months. Many organisations are using Oracle E-Business software to run their finance and procurements processes. There are options to replace this with cloud-based applications, or to redeploy it on cloud infrastructure to help meet business drivers. Working with the right Managed Services provider can help you to optimise your existing software and help you to deliver real business benefit.
So why did blockchain adoption take so long compared to other new technologies such as cloud and AI? The slow adoption in highly regulated, complex markets such as the financial services industry shouldn’t come as a surprise. Blockchain is suited for complex, collaborative, multi-party, and critical application use-cases. This is another big reason why blockchain adoption has taken much longer than some predicted, as Rob Coole, VP of Cloud Technologies at IPC, explains below.
Next-generation blockchain
Next-generation blockchain organisations are leading the way showing how the technology can be used intelligently for the world we live in today. For example, R3, an enterprise software company, is working with an ecosystem of over 200 financial institutions, regulators, trade associations, professional services and technology companies to develop Corda, a Blockchain platform designed specifically for businesses to deliver two interoperable and fully compatible distributions of the platform that addresses issues such as transactional certainty, data privacy, and scalability limitations.
Gartner predicts that blockchain will be fully scalable by 2023. IPC’s sense of the future of blockchain, particularly in the enterprise space, is just as positive. We are seeing customers truly learning about the practical reasons to deploy, leading to more investment in time and money in blockchain.
Importance of complementary partnerships
Both application service providers and subscribers should partner with service and product providers at an operational level integration to be ahead in the blockchain curve. Real value is provided with the integration and support from the hyper-scale platform community such as Microsoft Azure and AWS together with open industry platforms, such as IPC’s Connexus Hub, that creates end-to-end solutions that solve business problems. The importance here is APIs. We believe in a API partner integration approach which gives institutions the ability to easily access data, provide insights and inspire innovation for the market need.
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Service providers, like IPC, can play a critical role here by supporting operationalisation in the systems-oriented context. Such providers are a natural connector embedding connectivity to key market participants. IPC, for example, enables access to all asset classes with over 2,000 sell-side firms, 4,000 buy-side firm and 75+ exchanges in its vast, diverse ecosystem.
What’s next?
COVID-19 has provided a ‘new normal’ that is impacting every aspect of our lives. Though this pandemic is devastating from a health, societal and economic perspective, blockchain may help the global economy rebound. The World Economic Forum believes technology such as blockchain “will benefit all countries currently impacted by COVID-19”, as it provides an efficient approach to reduce trade cost on a global scale.
Digital initiatives such as blockchain is non-partisan and open to all which allows users to act quickly at low cost with low barriers for innovation - all valuable factors in supporting the economy in an economic downturn. So, although blockchain adoption was slow in its early stage, 2020 seems to be the year blockchain comes of age.
Around a third of Americans are currently working from home in order to help prevent and limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. However, while not physically in the office, keeping track of things such as employee time can prove to be quite a challenge. From payroll to efficiency, modern business technology might be able to help. With that said, here’s how the utilisation of time tracking software can be useful, especially when it comes to a business's financial aspects.
What is time tracking software?
Time tracking software is a computer software that allows businesses to accurately keep track of an employee’s time that’s spent on projects. Many industries utilise this type of software, as it proves to be especially useful for those who work in the freelancing industry and for those who bill their clients by the hour. Not only can this eliminate paperwork and physical means of timekeeping, such as spreadsheets or paper, but some time tracking software allows you to enter both time on and time off of work, along with expenses on one interface. This not only reduces stress for business owners and employees alike, but it is extremely convenient to use as well.
In the new age of the COVID-19 pandemic where working from home has become the norm, time tracking software can become even more valuable. For example, it can become difficult to track employee time when the employees are working from remote locations, though time tracking software can become a solution to that issue as it allows for full transparency. Not only that, but it can help greatly when it comes to keeping track of worker productivity, motivation, and increasing efficiency within the business as a whole - though there’s more to it than that, and especially so though a financial standpoint.
In the new age of the COVID-19 pandemic where working from home has become the norm, time tracking software can become even more valuable.
Saving money and cutting costs
One of the greatest benefits of utilising time tracking software is the fact that it can save businesses money in a number of different ways. By seeing where employees specifically spend their time, companies can save when it comes to payroll, by accurately paying employees for the work they do — thus working to effectively cut out any guesswork on the employee or employer by creating far less work in the payroll department.
This also allows for clients to be billed for the exact amount of time spent on a project, which can benefit the client and create clarity when it comes to billing, and can also act as proof that they didn’t get overcharged. Unsurprisingly, this can help result in a more satisfied customer, improving relationships between the business and consumer. Time tracking software can cut costs in other ways as well. For instance, many kinds of software can be integrated with a businesses existing payroll or accounting system. By doing so, implementing the software can not only be convenient, but time and costs can both be reduced in the process.
Gaining valuable insight
Time tracking software also brings the benefit of bringing valuable insight to businesses, by allowing them to view the software analytics. Since time tracking software allows businesses to see exactly how workers spend their time, adjusting their pricing models accordingly can become much easier and even save time. Time tracking software can also be beneficial in planning and budgeting, too - for instance, consulting with the analytics from the time tracking software can give business owners a general overview that can help decide how they should go about certain affairs, as they can see how much time it takes to complete certain tasks.
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Maximum efficiency
For many businesses, the coronavirus pandemic has brought uncertainty, especially when it comes to finances. While working from home is becoming the new norm for now, 74% of CFOs and business finance leaders expect that at least 5% of their workforce will actually continue to work from home permanently — even after the pandemic is over. With that in mind, time tracking software can help to seamlessly maximise efficiency and help to create a sort of certainty in the process, whether it be short or long term.
For example, by reporting exactly how an employee’s time is spent, you can see which employees are truly contributing to the team, of which can save money in the long run should you determine an employee to be extremely unproductive by letting them go. While the efficiency gained from time tracking software can seem quite beneficial for managers and business owners alike, employees can also take advantage of this feature by viewing their progress and learning from it on how they can be more productive in the future.
For many businesses that have chosen to operate online by having their employees work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, time tracking software can prove to be a real asset, especially with the benefits that it can bring financially. From saving money to providing valuable insights that can help with pricing and budgeting, time tracking software can bring a myriad of benefits to those who choose to implement it, and can introduce businesses to a helpful tool that may be able to help them even after the pandemic ends.
According to Dominic Buch, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Caple, in order to support that growth, many CFOs will be expected to examine and recommend suitable funding solutions.
Finding an appropriate form of finance is more complex than it used to be. For most of the twentieth century, business lending was based on the value of a company’s assets such as property, stock or invoices.
To help firms access funding, finance directors have therefore developed a good understanding of how lenders would assess their company’s physical assets.
However, today, companies are more likely to be investing in intangible assets such as data, software or a strong brand than tangible ones.
This investment in intangible assets has spurred growth and innovation. But using them as collateral to borrow against remains difficult. Although value is built in intangible assets, finance is raised against tangible ones.
Without a new approach to funding, finance directors, especially in asset-light sectors such as professional services, technology or media, may struggle to find suitable funding for their business.
The growth of the intangible economy
As most finance directors would recognise, companies now build and grow through investment in intangible assets, alongside a continued focus on human capital.
We can see this from the businesses that succeed today.
Airbnb is valued at $35bn because of its network and data, not because it owns apartments. Google has become a global behemoth because of its algorithms.
These companies are valued so highly because of their intangible assets, including the skills of the people that develop them.
The same is true of many smaller but growing businesses too. Service-based businesses contribute around 80% of UK GDP and more than £160bn in annual exports.
For instance, growing financial firms, technology companies and media businesses rely on intellectual property and brand to stand out from their competitors.
But because financial standards have not kept pace with these changes, finance directors may struggle to accurately value their asset and their business.
The challenge accessing capital
Intangible assets present a challenge to traditional lending models based around recoverable security such as property or machinery.
If a company with physical assets goes out of business, a bank can recover its money by selling those assets. Lending decisions can therefore be centred around the value of the assets, rather than the performance of the business.
Intangible assets are less transferable, they cannot easily be recovered and sold to a new owner.
As a result, businesses with intangible asset bases find it more difficult to access debt finance, regardless of the strength of its operations and the associated cash flows.
When asset-light service-based businesses sector are such a vital part of the UK economy, this puts a brake on growth.
How unsecured lending can help
Traditionalists will say equity funding through venture capital or private equity is the solution. Often that holds true.
However, as finance directors will know, third party investment, does not suit every sector, firm or business owner. It also dilutes ownership.
Instead, asset-light companies can now benefit from unsecured lending, based on an understanding of the future cash flows generated by the business, rather than the value of physical assets.
Working with external advisers such as an accountant or business advisor, finance directors often play an important role in helping their business access the right funding.
Both by identifying suitable lenders and in supporting the development of the forecasts and business plans central to a credit process based on future cash flows.
When expanding businesses are important for both jobs and growth, we need to do all we can to help fund them.
We need a new approach to lending where finance directors can help their firms access the right growth funding for them.
This week Finance Monthly hears from Caroline Hermon, Head of Adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at SAS UK & Ireland, on the adoption of open source analytics in the finance sector and beyond.
Open source software used to be treated almost as a joke in the financial services sector. If you wanted to build a new system, you bought tried and tested, enterprise-grade software from a large, reputable vendor. You didn’t gamble with your customers’ trust by adopting tools written by small groups of independent programmers. Especially with no formal support contracts and no guarantees that they would continue to be maintained in the future.
Fast-forward to today, and the received wisdom seems to have turned on its head. Why invest in expensive proprietary software when you can use an open source equivalent for free? Why wait months for the official release of a new feature when you can edit the source code and add it yourself? And why lock yourself into a vendor relationship when you can create your own version of the tool and control your own destiny?
Enthusiasm for open source software is especially prevalent in business domains where innovation is the top priority. Data science is probably the most notable example. In recent years, open source languages such as R and Python have built an increasingly dominant position in the spheres of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
As a result, open source is now firmly on the agenda for decision makers at the world’s leading financial institutions. The thinking is that to drive digital transformation, their businesses need real-time insight. To gain that insight, they need AI. And to deliver AI, they need to be able to harness open source tools.
The open source trend encompasses more than just the IT department. It’s spreading to the front office too. Notably, Barclays recently revealed that it is pushing all its equities traders to learn Python. At SAS, we’ve seen numerous examples of similar initiatives across banking domains from risk management to customer intelligence. For example, we’re seeing many of our clients building their models in R rather than using traditional proprietary languages.
A fool’s paradise?
However, despite its current popularity, the open source software model is not a panacea. Banks should still have legitimate concerns about support, governance and traceability.
The code of an open source project may be available for anyone to review. But tracing the complex web of dependencies between packages can quickly become extremely complex. This poses significant risks for any financial institution that wants to build on open source software.
Essentially, if you build a credit risk model or a customer analytics application that depends on an open source package, your systems also depend on all the dependencies of that package. Each of those dependencies may be maintained by a different individual or group of developers. If they make changes to their package, and those changes introduce a bug, or break compatibility with a package further up the dependency tree, or include malicious code, there could be an impact on the functionality or integrity of your model or application.
As a result, when a bank opts for an open source approach, it either needs to put trust in a lot of people or spend a lot of time reviewing, testing and auditing changes in each package before it puts any new code into production. This can be a very significant trade-off compared to the safety of a well-tested enterprise solution from a trusted vendor. Especially because banking is a highly regulated industry, and the penalties for running insecure or noncompliant systems in production are significant.
What use is power without control?
When it comes to enterprise-scale deployment, open source analytics software also often poses governance problems of a different kind for banks.
Open source projects are typically tightly focused on solving a specific set of problems. Each project is a powerful tool designed for a specific purpose: manipulating and refining large data sets, visualising data, designing machine learning models, running distributed calculations on a cluster of servers, and so on.
This “do one thing well” philosophy aids rapid development and innovation. But it also puts the responsibility on the end user – in this case, the bank – to integrate different tools into a controlled, secure and transparent workflow.
As a result, unless banks are prepared to invest in building a robust end-to-end data science platform from the ground up, they can easily end up with a tangled string of cobbled-together tools, with manual processes filling the gaps.
This quickly becomes a nightmare when banks try to move models into production because it is almost impossible to provide the levels of traceability and auditability that regulators expect.
Language doesn’t matter
The good news is that there’s a way for banks to benefit from the key advantages of open source analytics software – its flexibility and rapid innovation – without exposing themselves to unnecessary governance-related risks.
The language a bank’s data scientists choose to write their code in shouldn’t matter. By making a clean logical separation between model design and production deployment, banks can exploit all the benefits of the latest AI tools and frameworks. At the same time, they can keep their business-critical systems under tight control.
SAS plus open source
One SAS client, a large financial services provider in the UK, recently took this exact approach. The client uses open source languages to develop machine learning models for more accurate pricing. Then it uses the SAS Platform to train and deploy models into full-scale production. As a result, model training times dropped from over an hour to just two and a half minutes. And the company now has a complete audit trail for model deployment and governance. Crucially, the ability to innovate by moving from traditional regression models to a more accurate machine learning-based approach is estimated to deliver up to £16 million in financial benefits over the next three years.
