3 Ways Finance Software Can Help Your Business Cope With Inflation

AccountsIQ’s Accountant Partner Channel Manager, Chris Chambers, looks at ways businesses can use finance software to navigate an increasingly uncertain business environment.

Businesses are having to deal with so many challenges right now. Inflation’s surging to new 40-year highs, the Bank of England is raising interest rates in response, and energy markets and supply chains continue to suffer from severe disruption.
Here are three ways choosing the right finance technology can ensure your business is well-placed to deal with what looks set to be a difficult year ahead.

Keeping you in control of your cashflow

An economic downturn and inflation usually means some belt-tightening and certainly more focus on cost control and budgeting. According to Ian Stewart, Chief Economist at Deloitte, while many businesses are ‘bracing for recession’ they’re not (yet!) in ‘batten down the hatches mode’.

In practical terms what that means is that businesses are focussing more on three key areas:

• Ensuring they have a detailed grasp of costs right across their organisation
• Tightening up on approvals processes and workflows to keep a lid on expenses
• Automating as many of their manual finance and admin processes as possible to reduce costs and boost productivity.

As our Chief Revenue Officer, Nick Longden, recently said in AccountingWeb:

“There’s a deeper focus on spend management, with companies looking for more robust approvals processes and workflows to manage expenses. That focus isn’t so prominent in good times but it’s increasingly prevalent now.”

Giving you the data you need to make the right decisions

In many firms, the disruptions caused by the pandemic highlighted the need for different departments to work together to ensure the business had the data to make informed decisions. Now, with a possible recession looming, businesses are going to need even greater control over their company-wide data. And that means integrating systems across your whole business rather than having everyone working in silos.

Giving you the ability to forecast – and re-forecast – to adjust to changing conditions

When you integrate your financial management software such as AccountsIQ with specific forecasting tools you can gain an even greater level of control and insight. Allowing you to set your budgets/targets, then refresh this data with actuals as often as you want. It’s perfect for those ‘what if’ scenarios because you can see the impact of business changes such as expansion, contraction, price increases, cost increases, or new products, services and markets.

The headlines may look gloomy. And no-one should underestimate the challenges the business community faces over the coming year. But we believe it’s also true that those firms who combine automating and streamlining their processes with integrating their data will have the effective, actionable insights they need to lead their business through difficult times. 

AccountsIQ’s Financial Management Software seamlessly integrates with other apps to help businesses automate and streamline their finance processes, reporting, budgeting and forecasting.