Annual Financial Director Information Management Forum
Location: St Pancras, London
Date: 17 November 2011
We attended this event for the first time, expecting to be able to review emerging technologies and bring tips back to the office to share with our clients. The action packed agenda provided a great insight into how much larger global organisations from across the UK operate.
The day was split into 8 sessions, with a choice of afternoon focus groups. We thought it useful to blog and highlight the main areas of interest from the day and share some of the key messages with you.
We will focus on a few sessions and pull out the key messages.
1. What does Management Information mean in today’s business environment? Is it actually working?
A panel of top finance execs debated the topic, chaired by Joe Peppard (Professor of Information Systems at Cranfield School of Management). The main consideration was that MI historically has only considered Profit and Loss, Cashflow and Balance sheets and the real purpose of MI is indeed to inform management. The often cumbersome routine of month end procedures often gets in the way of FD’s looking forward and with FD’s hoping to spend 80% of their time doing just this, it is time that MI systems were better geared up to facilitate this.
Key messages
a. Spend time looking forward – 80%
b. Technology is the enabler, not the solution
c. Ensure training is provided to staff
d. Having good MI is not useful – actually use it!
2. Management Information at board level
Jennifer Harris, MD of Board Intelligence discussed how to ensure board reports are effective and informative for board members.
Directors cannot be expected to make robust decisions governing the future direction of their organisation without having first being given decent information.
We welcome Richard Escott from the Alan Boswell Group to share his specialist knowledge on new pension rules. Richard writes…..”Subject to Royal Assent, the new pension rules in the Finance Act are very attractive indeed, compared to the previous rules, and those expected, as far as ‘high earners’ are concerned.
Each individual with sufficient earnings will be able to invest up to £50,000 gross (paid £40,000 net of basic rate tax relief at source), and will be able to achieve income tax relief at their highest marginal rate. It was expected that relief would be restricted to the 40% rate even for 50% tax payers.
In addition, individuals can pay extra to make up for any shortfall in the previous three tax years between what was actually paid and £50,000. For example, an individual who had not paid anything at all since 6 April 2008 would be able to pay up to £200,000 in the current tax year if they had earnings to support it, and had an existing pension in place throughout that period. For employees such as directors, the opportunity to reduce salary or bonus, and have a corresponding employer pension contribution remains and has the additional benefit of saving both employee and employer National Insurance. Employer contributions must also qualify under the ‘wholly and exclusively’ rules for business expenditure generally.
One negative change is that the Lifetime Allowance will drop from £1.8m to £1.5m from April 2012 although those with particularly large pension pots can keep the limit at the £1.8m level, making an election before 5 April 2012, and ensuring that they pay no pension contributions whatsoever after that. Any excess pension value over the Lifetime Allowance suffers a punitive tax charge so careful planning may be required for some.”
Richard would be delighted to review your pension strategy. As a fee based adviser his advice would be independent and uninfluenced by provider commission. For more details, please contact Richard on 01603 218065 or email rescott@alanboswell.com
Today is the longest day of the year, caused when the earth’s axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun. Did you know that today the equator will receive exactly twelve hours of daylight; there are 24 hours of daylight at the North Pole and 24 hours of darkness at the South Pole! Read more here.
The longest day is unlikely to give any direct benefts to your business, however according to reports, the improved sunlight throughout the Summer is supposed to improve health and productivity by boosting Vitamin D levels.
Most businesses have recently been experiencing pressure on sales, profits, margin and cashflow.
Insight is a specific service designed to present business owners with financial and non-financial information. Providing quick, easy and concise information at your fingertips to help you respond faster.
We research, design and implement fully tailored solutions for your business, providing:
Dashboards – A bespoke snapshot of your business, allowing you to see quickly
and easily how all areas of your business are performing.
Customised report analysis – designed to show you the information you need in an easy
to use accurate format.
Succinct analysis of your data allowing you to see at a glance how specific areas of your
business are performing.
Strategic discussion around the results.
To find out more about Insight, read our flyer here and contact us on enquiry@mintconsult.com to arrange a free no obligation exploratory meeting.
We have been experimenting with ways in which the new Ipad2 can be used effectively in business.
We firmly believe that technology has an ever useful presence in business, not only for staff to use, but for business owners to monitor and control their organisations.
From Internet Banking (including business banking apps) to full blown Mobile Analytics we use them all in our business and with our clients.
We recently developed our Mobile Analytics service, see here. We work with the business owner and key management to develop methods to extract or amend existing Management Information into a suitable format. It is then uploaded to the web and delivered to either your Apple Ipad or Iphone.
The end product is fully customisable to your business and really does allow you to walk away from your business with all of the key information available at a click of a button and in a graphical drillable format.
We have also been using Mailchimp for our newsletters and their new app (Chimpadeedoo) allows people to sign up to our enewsletter using the Ipad. We also use Numbers and Quickoffice, not to mention BBC iPlayer and the ability to use the Ipad as a fantastic promotional tool, through the ability to watch our video.
A client had an issue getting some vital information out of sage. To solve this, we built a custom report within sage and inserted it into a user-friendly spreadsheet for easy data manipulation.
We are delighted to report that Mint Consult has recently appointed James Carter as a Junior Consultant, following his successful intern placement through the University of East Anglia’s Project Evolve scheme.
James has spent the last 12 weeks working with Mint, assisting with the development of the Insight service and being involved with the company’s marketing and networking activities, together with specific client assignment.
James will continue to work from the new Norwich city centre office in Mountergate and will be involved in all aspects of the business.
A graduate internship programme run by the University of East Anglia is set to continue after exceeding its original targets.
The Project Evolve Graduate Internship Programme has been extended until the end of July after 198 placements were secured for students – surpassing a target of 170.
The scheme, which was due to draw to a close in March, offers local businesses the opportunity to secure a graduate to work on a specific project for up to 12 weeks, either full or part-time.
How effective is your accounting system for Management Information reporting?
Frustrated with Sage?
We have launched our FREE “Management Information Health Check” as part of our innovative research project designed to support local businesses.
Click here to find out more about our Free MI healthcheck or to arrange your free review, please contact us on enquiry@mintconsult.com or call 0845 805 7390.
We are happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement and work with you to see if we can help.
Mint specialises in providing financial and strategic advice to local businesses, aligning strategic goals, aims and actions to achieve tangible measurable results.
How effective is your accounting system for Management Information reporting?
