What is a Virtual CFO?
Accountants have always held a special place with their customers.
When it comes to Annual Financial Statements and tax the average accountant can rattle these off fairly easily.
We have reached a new era in accounting!
With the advent of digital 2.0 (https://www.cio.com/article/3287929/whatisdigital2.0.html) accountants have access to technology that puts them in a new place when it comes to what they can add.
The value comes in two areas.
Let me give you some specific examples.
Process efficiencies (this is just one of many examples)
Using a tool like Hubdoc (free with a Xero Subscription) you can train Hubdoc to “read” pdf documents using OCR(Optical Character Recognition) technology. All you do is email your invoices received from your suppliers to a Hubdoc email address. Hubdoc captures the invoice, you review it and publish the information to your accounting system. A task that used to take a good accountant 2-5 minutes can now take 10 seconds. Multiply that by large volumes and you have magic!
Data driven insights that lead to better business decisions (this is just one of many examples)
Aside from the traditional role of producing Annual Financial Statements for tax purposes, accountants have access to the financial information that can be connected to other operational information. When this data is connected new insights can be gained or the business can be operated in a different way.
Let me give you one practical example:
A customer phones into a business to speak to a Sales Representative. That customer owes the company and is two months in arrears. In a financial department that has adopted digital 2.0 principles, that Sales Representative has access to the accounting system (Xero has unlimited users built into the base subscription, and users can be given read-only access to view limited information) to view the customer’s balance. The salesperson alerts the customer to the fact that the account is in arrears and puts the customer through to the accounts department to settle their account. Note that the customer’s debtors account was fully up to date with receipts processed up to the previous day’s date. Xero has automated bank feeds, and the accounts department can access Xero from anywhere, anytime because it in the cloud.
118Accounting is :
. Certified Xero Silver Partner
. CA (SA)
Registered Tax Practitioner
We are accountants that love solving business problems using elegant solutions.
Contact us:
admin@118accounting.co.za or
Mike 0824106818 for a no-obligation discussion.