As Britain traverses a long and uncertain economic road, amid persistently high inflation and signs of a slowing global economy, businesses need to ensure they have perspective at all times.

The ability to produce a 360-degree view of a business, based on real-time data, is now paramount. Like all businesses, accountancy practices must have a clear view of the threats and opportunities that may impact their clients. This equips them to advise on what decisions can help achieve the best possible outcomes. They also need to produce timely and relevant forecasts in today’s rapidly changing economic landscape of business variables. Many of the old tools and technologies that practices are still using will not make the cut in this age of uncertainty. And there’s no time like the present to re-evaluate.

At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, we aim to deliver deep impact when it matters most. In this article, we shed light on how practices should expect reporting and forecasting to develop over the short and long term. We’ll also cover some of the game-changing results that may help to win new business, and accelerate practice growth.

Retrieving and reporting on real-time data may be key to navigating a recession

Many practices, including those that are fully digitised, have not moved to using more modern reporting and forecasting tools. This is despite the fact that most firms are aware of the limitations of using spreadsheets as their primary tool for reporting, preparing budgets, and forecasting. The manual data entry and preparation usually associated with spreadsheets is a common complaint.

However, an even more profound concern is that most spreadsheets are not connected to digital bookkeeping systems. Nor are they usually connected to systems that efficiently automate data collection and analysis. The data fed into them is often not timely enough to present a contemporary, and accurate, view of a business. It is also not easily refreshed to reflect real-time changes in any number of economic variables.

Globally, sectors such as insurance, manufacturing and healthcare have been reporting against real-time data for decades. This allows them to get a better view of their customers and produce products faster – and in some cases, to save lives by informing better decisions.

So what’s holding accountancy practices back? It’s not entirely clear. The reality, however, is that accountants need to embrace the commercial and operational value of real-time data. As UK businesses navigate a difficult cost of living crisis, real-time data could be the driving force needed to weather this storm. To get a current 360-degree view of any business, accountants must ensure that reporting is streamlined and data is obtained in real time.

Client Reporting Should Become an Opportunity

If you are using spreadsheets for reporting, a bad-case scenario is that your clients don’t find the results visually compelling. This might let down your brand. A worst-case scenario is that your clients don’t understand the results enough to have a meaningful conversation about them.

We live in a fast-paced, digital, visual world. Beautiful, intuitive user interfaces surround us. Buying consumer goods such as books, gifts and viewing experiences is now guided by contextual, highly relevant user experiences. These are often personalised to the individual. As Gartner says, user experience (UX) is the sum of the effects caused by a person using a digital solution. UX efforts concentrate on the experience people have when interacting with a specific product or solution.

It’s time to close the user experience gap in accounting. If you are still using time-consuming spreadsheets to display results, your clients will notice the vast difference in user experience between spreadsheets and the technology they use in their own lives. Any opportunity to brand and design your client’s user experience is an opportunity to do better business. Indeed, it might possibly be an opportunity to do more business.

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KPIs Should be 100% Customised

Between profitability KPIs, liquidity KPIs, efficiency KPIs, and non-financial KPIs, many practices may feel submerged in performance indicator measurement. However, traditional KPIs may not cover all the elements important to your individual clients.

When it comes to KPIs, businesses may have to ask themselves some tough questions. Does your KPI technology support the individual needs of any given client? Are your KPIs an accurate measure of success that will help explain progress, and identify trends for clients? Can you connect KPIs to fuel forecasting, so that you can make the best business decisions for an individual set of parameters? Are the KPIs you set for clients inspiring meaningful conversations, or helping to create new business?

KPIs today must be customisable so that advisors can produce a relevant, 360-degree view of any client’s business. This helps to tell a story that is relevant and impactful to them. With the current economic instability and cost of living crisis, efficiency KPIs may need to be amended. Profitability KPIs may need to be monitored with a more critical eye. The ability to customise and fine-tune KPIs is more important than ever before.

Forecasting for Better Predictions

It’s time to move from a culture of reactive decision-making to real-time reporting, and business planning informed by forecasting.

Accurate and timely forecasting positions your clients to make better predictions for long-term business growth and expansion. It can help them to understand the direction they are heading in, and what they can do to affect that direction.

Forecasting may also help to remove the fear factor of uncertainty that many businesses are experiencing right now. In uncertain times, a strong financial forecasting function can be a game-changing strategy. Forecasting may help businesses determine whether they need to quickly pivot their business strategy to change outcomes. It may also help them to test and trial the impact of different business strategies, and alter them based on profitability timelines. Most importantly, it equips businesses to plan for worst-case scenarios with foresight and visibility.

Forecasting, real-time reporting data, and more streamlined visual reporting displays form the future. Coupled with individualised, customisable KPIs, today’s modern practice has every opportunity to provide better service for a more resilient, future-proofed client portfolio, and to gain more clients through these new differentiators.

Get in touch

At Wolters Kluwer, we create value for customers by providing them expert solutions. We offer finsit: a smarter, simpler reporting and forecasting tool for accountants. We combine deep domain knowledge with advanced technology and services to deliver better outcomes, analytics, and improved productivity for our customers.

Finsit has already been in use in various European countries. We’re delighted to bring it to the UK complete with its brand new forecasting module, plus available integrations with CCH and other bookkeeping solutions.