How can management information help your business to thrive?

Making good management decisions requires oversight into every aspect of your business with real-time, accurate financial information. With many businesses still only using their accountants once a year, how can you benefit from management information services to make important business decisions?

Management information is crucial. It allows you to make fundamental business decisions which are well-informed. During times of uncertainty and the current economic climate, more businesses will need to make critical decisions whether it be trade, employment or finance.

With management information support, SMEs, owner-managed businesses and even larger organisations can streamline their processes and reduce costs whilst making timely decisions in the best interest of the business.

With that in mind, here are 5 ways outsourcing your management information service can help your business thrive this year:

1. Scalability of services

Like many other SMEs, you might find yourself in a position where you don’t know the true value of the business information you’re sitting on. Or you might not have the capacity to commit to the long-term costs of hiring someone in-house. This is where outsourcing can be vital, offering more flexibility with no long-term financial commitment.

Outsourced management information allows you to gain access to information and advice as and when you need it. Because certain information and the insights they yield may not be relevant to your decision-making process all year round, outsourced information is more cost-efficient and can fit around the budget and staffing needs of the business.

2. Greater visibility for effective forecasting and response

In order to make timely decisions, visibility of financial performance is key. That’s why contacting your accountant on an annual basis often doesn’t suffice. And when clients do come to their accountant for help, it’s often too late.

Financial information is at the heart of knowing how your business is performing, whether it be cashflow and profitability; debtors and debt service coverage ratio; or return on fixed assets and break-even points. An outsourced service can give you access to key financial data, and more importantly, analyse what it actually means for your business.

This means that, if or when something does change you’ll have greater insight into each aspect of your business and access to expertise to help you make those important decisions promptly lessening the risk of being taken by surprise.

Business forecasting and planning has always been important to running a business with a healthy balance sheet, but never more so than now. With a recent threat of recession, high inflation and interest rates, knowing how your business is performing will set you up to respond to such challenges.

3. Real time information and effective cashflow planning

Having financial information that is always up to date allows you to make decisions to positively impact your business’ cashflow.

Take tax for example. Being able to tap into your current tax exposure could reveal potential opportunities that would have otherwise been left unnoticed. We’ve seen this happen time and again.

Having access to a wealth of real-time financial information should prompt productive and valuable conversations with your accountant and advisors, opening up opportunities for a better approach to your business’ cashflow planning including tax planning and beyond.

4. Increased efficiency

With expertise comes more capability, and with a wide skillset in using the most cutting edge technology, you can benefit from greater efficiency.

There are many different software offerings that can be included in an outsourced management information offering such as Xero, which allows you to make the most of the following technological advances:

- DEXT prepare for automation of invoices saves valuable time that would usually be spent manually inputting information.

- SYFT Analytics allows the identification of useful data insights which are able to be compared with industry averages, allowing you a more in-depth overview of business performance.

- Presentation of raw data in a user-friendly report to ensure that no data is overlooked.

- Using Futrli helps to automate cashflow forecasting and scenario modelling process, enabling quicker decisions to be made.

- An automated excel function enables the production of information in a more timely manner, which in turn becomes a more cost effective service.

Having information at your fingertips, at a faster rate from an outsourced service, your business will have more time to focus on its core operations and strategy.

5. Prompting proactive conversations and decisions

Being able to understand and anticipate what’s happening in your industry and how to support you in the context of that is the ultimate value of a management information service.

Accurate data could be used to identify trends, patterns and potential opportunities or challenges. This information then can be used to drive proactive conversations and decisions that not only allow your business to make important financial decisions but stay ahead of the curve with the changes in your industry. Most importantly, giving you a competitive advantage over others.

Supporting you with your financial needs

Our team of experts offer a clear and concise management pack that is bespoke to each and every client that we work with.

Decision making, detailed reporting and delving into your data – our financial expertise can support you with your highlight key information areas and data to help your business thrive in the year ahead.