The role of accountants and their software in enabling prompt payment
As I approach the end of week three in role, I have met with the major accounting platform providers, Intuit, Sage, Xero, and two principal professional membership bodies, ICAEW and ACCA. Thank you all for your time.
Discussions have reflected on the vital role accountants and accounting software plays when it comes to speeding up payment. That role is, in my view, three-pronged:
- Using accounting software can speed up payments as the business has a real time view of cashflow, including monies owed, and can deploy tools that chase for late invoices to be paid.
- Finance Directors at larger companies, who are members of professional accounting bodies, make important decisions on payment terms for suppliers and can influence a company’s payment culture. There are calls for more reporting of payment terms at board level and on audit committees that could strengthen this role further.
- Together as a sector the accounting profession has powerful data on business performance so can tell us what to expect in the economic future and can aggregate data, in a safe and trusted way, to deliver benchmarking to small firms to boost productivity and sales.
This is a sector that works well together and with new ideas being considered such as the introduction of e-invoicing (more on this to follow when a response to the government consultation is published*), accountants and the platforms that power them could hold the key to unlocking gains, by delivering a journey for small businesses where contracts and invoices become more standardised and money is released via open banking integrations on the day monies have agreed to be paid.
I look forward to working with accounting friends and partners on this mission.
You can view our e-invoicing information webpage on our website.