For most businesses, time is a premium quantity, and so digital accounting applications that can offer simple 'at a glance' analysis and reports can help enable informed decisions based on real-time data, saving not only time but also providing an overall picture of how the business is performing on a month by month basis.
Introducing the first in our series of articles looking at new developments in cloud accounting apps, Lauren Hayden, Senior Associate in Hazlewoods Business Solutions team, takes a look at Xero’s new management report pack and how it could benefit your business.
Xero’s management report pack groups together six of Xero’s newer reports into one useful reporting pack.
The executive summary report provides you with an overview of the business’s financial performance and cash flow data, helping you to view key performance indicators (KPIs) and generate meeting discussion points. This report is a summary of the business profitability, cash movement, average sales and much more, in a single page report. This snapshot allows for a high-level discussion of the headline KPIs, for management to monitor on a monthly basis. This may also be useful when time is at a premium, with key information all in one place.
The cash summary report details the business cash income and expenditure for any desired period and compares this to the business average for the time scale, with a variance. This report can assist business owners and finance departments to see fluctuating expenses and income for further analysis, and understand where the pinch points are. From here, management can make decisions on when to purchase capital items, for example new computers, depending on when the cashflow is best placed to support this historically.
Next, we have the profit and loss report. Profitability is a popular measure for business performance, meaning this report is commonly used in management information and reporting. The balance sheet report is a snapshot in time, detailing the business assets and liabilities, which can be produced with comparative periods. Ultimately, these reports present the overall picture of how the business is performing, on a real-time, month by month basis, rather than reviewing this annually with your accountant.
Finally, using the aged receivables and aged payables report can assist you with managing cashflow. Using the aged receivables report to identify overdue sales invoices, you can send friendly reminders to get paid sooner. Similarly, with the aged payables report you can see what invoices are becoming due for payment, what payment terms could be extended and managing this with your cashflow.
In summary, the default reports included in the management pack are:
- Executive summary
- Cash summary
- Profit and loss
- Balance sheet
- Aged receivables summary
- Aged payables summary
Different editing options are available for the different reports, including editing the date range, comparatives, variances and other options.
You can create your own report pack without the default reports. This means that any bespoke or standard reports included in your own month-end pack can be run at a click of a button. Once you’ve added the reports you want, save the pack as a custom report which can be reused again in the future. Have a go now and see how these reports can assist the smooth running of your business.
Hazlewoods Business Solutions team is on hand to help you assess the reports that would be most beneficial to give your business the data it needs to reach your goals.
To have an initial discussion about how these reports could help you, please get in touch with Lauren Hayden at lauren.hayden@hazlewoods.co.uk or 01242 680000.