2021 AIT conference: a roadmap to the future

Accountancy practice management software has come a long way. Today, features like automated billing and reconciliations are easily integrated into the day-to-day practice workflow of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK customers.

Our employees work side by side with our customers to create and manage these solutions – driven by a deep understanding of their needs and addressing the rapid changes in their environment.

However, it’s often hard to look beyond improving performance in day-to-day operations. Amid Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions, accountancy practices and their clients are dealing with an unpredictable economic landscape. Future business planning can appear daunting.

However, technology can support accountancy practices (and their clients) in making informed business decisions, and planning for the future. In the first part of our Accountancy Practice Management for Future-Fit Growth series, we’ll explore how they can use technology to define and easily track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Doing so gives practices closer control of performance tracking, and deeper insights that will inform strategic growth plans.

Saving Time

For several decades, business technology platforms have enabled practices to track performance metrics that they have customised. This highlights areas that qualify for improvement and underpins strategic planning.

Contemporary technology, such as CCH KPI Monitoring, makes setting up KPIs faster and easier for accountancy practices than ever before. This is vital today. The current business landscape demands that firms assess and amend KPIs more frequently, based on fresh market variables. KPIs such as client retention rate and business time-to-recovery have become increasingly prominent performance indicators in the past year. If clunky technology makes KPI management difficult, practices have less time and insight to plan future growth.

Reducing Risk
CCH KPI Monitoring makes it far easier to track KPIs and report on them. This is fundamental in minimising risk. For example, if a KPI is set to track and escalate debt filtered by overdue dates, the ability to easily set alerts and automatically generate reports is critical to practice performance management.

Some practices are manually running monthly reports to measure KPIs. Others are running real-time reporting engines, a key feature of CCH KPI Monitoring. This latter solution allows practices to review essential data at any time – covering both performance management and compliance requirements. They can do so remotely or on-premise.

This means that firms can assess issues before they become problems, and thus act proactively. Real-time reporting is a true asset in building a future-fit practice.

The Proof is in the Practice
A number of Wolters Kluwer customers have been using CCH KPI Monitoring for several years now. Our customers look to us when they need to be right. Ryecroft Glenton has successfully integrated CCH KPI Monitoring with its own system. This consolidates information from several sources, including CCH Central and CCH Practice Management.

“We can use the year end date to trigger a sequence of reminders. Have we asked for the books? Have they been received? If a request to a client has been outstanding for a certain period, the partner will receive an alert via email. For limited companies, we can monitor the corporation tax and Companies House filing deadlines – as well as the different deadlines for pension schemes”

– Ian Smith, partner at Ryecroft Glenton

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

This year’s ‘members only’ event is one not to be missed! It’s been a challenging and unprecedented two years and now is the time to reconnect. The event will provide networking opportunities for both accountancy firms and suppliers, with just the right mix of informative presentations, round table discussions and social activities. 

The AIT annual conference is the ‘go to’ event, enabling members to mix with like-minded colleagues, to share experiences with old friends and above all to meet new people and make new friends. 

We are now in our twelfth year and this year the conference will very much focus on where to from here, what can we do in our professional roles to enable a smooth passage for emerging technologies and of course to have fun in the process!

The conference will be held at Luton Hoo on Wednesday 29th September followed by a morning of fun activities on Thursday 30th with a planned post lunch departure. In the past years we have had really thought-provoking speakers and this year will be no different.

The conference will be held at Luton Hoo on Wednesday 29th September followed by a morning of fun activities on Thursday 30th with a planned post lunch departure. In the past years we have had really thought-provoking speakers and this year will be no different.

Journalist, reporter and author, Kate Russell has been writing about Technology and the Internet since 1995. She’s been a regular on the BBC’s Click Technology programme for over a decade and has written for National Geographic traveller magazine for 6 years. She also speaks at conferences and digital strategy and policy meetings, as well as lecturing in schools and universities to inspire the next generation of technologists. Her website, www.katerussell.co.uk, has won multiple awards for best technology blog and she has been honoured in the hall of fame for the computer weekly top 50 most influential women in I.T. in the U.K. She also writes sci-fi and fantasy with two published novels now available.

We are very grateful to our sponsors, who’s support, experience and technical input is invaluable. Delegates will be able to meet representatives from all our sponsors throughout the day and hear how they are preparing for their own future roadmap.

Delegate safety will always be our priority. Everyone has their own level of comfort as we return to events, and we will be encouraging attendees to give each other space and check with each other before initialising contact. We will be requesting all delegates to take a lateral flow test before travelling to the event, hand sanitiser will be readily available throughout the venue as will disposable masks and gloves for those that choose to use them.

Sept 2021

Solving Data Quality Management Complexities

Work Capcha automatically tracks your digital journey throughout your day so you don’t have to. Your activity appears in your Day Bookas you start to make calls, attend meetings, send and receive emails, and use applications such as Xero from our eco-system.

Corporate events agency who benefited from greener graphics initiative

“Apogee are not just aprinting company, theyconsult with us and go onto deliver a full end to endservice from concept toinstallation. They go aboveand beyond and we lookforward to continuing ourjourney with them”

RE-CONNECT

When I wrote the “CIO perspective on Learnings from Covid_19 pandemic” piece in the December 2020 Portrait edition there was still massive uncertainty as to what2021 would hold for us, both professionally and personally. The overwhelmingly positive progress on vaccinations in the UK and the government’s easing of restrictions has informed our decision to hold the annual AIT conference face to face. When discussing the theme we felt the AIT members and suppliers did not just want to connect, rather needed to re-connect.