The days are getting shorter and temperatures are falling, I am holding back on the cranking on the heating though I am sure some pressure from the thin blooded members of the household will force my hand. Summer is all but done and even the trees are telling us we’re heading for Autumn.
For companies with a December year-end this time of year signifies more; as the season fades, so does the anticipation of budgets and the depressing realization that the financial year end is bearing down rapidly upon us.
So if your year end is December you have only a few more weeks to take advantage of the relative quiet of the Summer-end. Q4 will see things kick into high gear in just a couple of weeks.
Before your work days shift from summer hours and you start burning overtime hours and endless pots of black coffee, read this checklist that offers three ways to proactively position yourself for an improved year end and a new financial year.
Keep on top of IASB and FASB updates
A good way to ensure that you’re keeping abreast of the latest trends and decisions is to either get direct notification from the IASB or FASB or to lean on your auditors to feed you with the requisite information. PWC do a pretty good job of this via their website but you can also get feeds from others including the boards themselves.
Brush up on industry trends
Keeping abreast of what your peers and competitors are up to is an important way to keep ahead of the game and there is no better way than to make sure you know what is happening as it happens. Deloitte provide a pretty decent trends feed. This one is focused on the financial services segment but you’ll find others too like CPG. Don’t forget that the ICAEW and ACCA also provide some great feeds
Research your software options
Getting into your budgeting cycle for the year end will be a good time to consider that shiny piece of new software that you want to invest in in the new year. Be sure to have planned a budget with benefits and costs well thought out beforehand. A couple of sites to check out inlcude the Accounting Software Review, PC Pros Accounting Software Review and Michael Koploy‘s comparison on Software Advice.com
Don’t forget to also think about whether you are going to switch to Google or Office365; all indications are that you could save your company significant costs by switching to a SAAS model in 2014.
