Some helpful advice from the folks at Accuity Solutions:
As with most businesses currently it is keeping an eye on the key factors. Every morning we are having a Senior Leadership Team remote meeting to understand the position of the company, and the environment we are in, so we can make timely decisions. This has given us the ability to be very agile in our management.
– Accuity Solutions Chief Product Officer, Mark Cohen
Solutions to aid working from home
09TH APRIL 2020 |ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Working in a finance office is a common practice, yet in 2020 that office has a very different look. With the enforcement of working from home, many companies are having to adapt to a way of working that is very unfamiliar to themselves, and at a rate which they could never have previously been imagined.
At Acuity, we too had to take this step, for which we relied upon not only the flexibility of our wonderful staff, but also the knowledge of some of our senior team around making the transition successful.
We spent a little time to chat with our Chief Product Officer, Mark Cohen, to understand what we can learn from our business to help others.
How has working from home affected you personally?
As a frequent home worker during normal times it was not as bigger change as it may have been for others, however I was able to break up the weeks before with some days at home and some days with visits to customers or to the office. I have actually gone from not having a standard routine to having to have the same one every day.
What has been the biggest change?
From a company perspective, the obvious answer to that a number of staff, inlcuding the finance team, are no longer office based. However we had made a lot of changes in the last year that really helped us be in a position to adapt. When we moved our Head office to Central London, we put a lot of processes and systems in place to aid remote working. Some of these measures we are recommending to our customers now.
What is most important to Acuity during the change?
As with most businesses currently it is keeping an eye on the key factors. Every morning we are having a Senior Leadership Team remote meeting to understand the position of the company, and the environment we are in, so we can make timely decisions. This has given us the ability to be very agile in our management.
Of course, as with most businesses, cash is king and the collection of debt is vital. We take a very detailed look into work we are carrying out, to ensure we are efficient in raising invoices and getting the most value out of the time we spend on credit control.
This is also very important to our customers and is one of the areas we have been able to provide a lot of benefit recently.
Also ensuring that any money we are paying out has been authorised and is paid when it is due. So the metrics around cash in and cash out are a key discussion for our morning calls.
How has the business adapted?
As described earlier, we had already made a number of changes to our business as part of our move to London, however we have also accelerated our plans to roll out Sage Intacct into the business. This will manage our finance functions, order processing, contracts and project management. This change is an important step in our ability to continue our growth once we get past this current situation.
How can we help other businesses?
In this time, it is key for us to ensure that we find solutions for our customers which incorporate best practice to resolve business needs. They must also show a quick ROI as we understand that investments aren’t readily flowing during these volatile economic and social times.
For example, we have just created a new module for X3 that allows for workflow signatures and approvals to be managed via a clear and easy to use online portal, rather than having to carry out approvals via logging into the system or via emails that do not always display all of the key information required.
Therefore, over the coming weeks we will be holding webinars to aid our customers, we will be educating around a few products which enable some of the following functions.
- Cash collection
- Document capture and authorisation
- Sage X3 Authorisations Portal
