At a Glance…
Challenges:
• 7 days spent closing off the month.
• Working 4 days per week, instead of the contracted 3 days.
• Manual processes for managing sales and reporting.
Benefits:
• Saved circa 5 days on just month-end reporting!
• Improved work-life balance with a 3-day work week.
• Ability to utilise all tools and evenly distribute workload over the month.
Objectives:
Clitheroe Auction Mart has grown to a size that they needed a more efficient and streamlined finance function. With information coming from a variety of different places, there was little
uniformity in their workflows.
With Helen contracted to work 3-days per week, but in reality, working 4-days a week, it was time for change. The goal was to create a more structured process to follow and ultimately, make the 3-day work week a reality.
Solution:
After a thorough review of their workflows, it was clear what was needed to be done to bring the 3-day work week to reality. What did we do:
• Xero refresher training.
• Implemented structured workflows to capture sales data more accurately.
• Setup bank feeds to reduce month-end processing.
• Advanced training with Xero tools and Dext.
• Created a management pack template to be run every month to speed up month-end reporting.
Benefits
- 3-day work week
With Helen spreading out the work load more evenly across the month, and improved management in Xero, the goal of a 3-day work week is now a reality. - Month-end reporting takes 1 day!
The month-end process used to take on average, 5-7 days to complete. Now, with the workload spread out evenly, and Xero reports being utilised, it takes 1 day. The reports are ready “at the click of a button!”. - Succession planning is now easier
Succession planning isn’t easy for finance teams, especially when processes are not easy to pick up. With the new structure, Helen now has the ability to bring in someone else to help and easily pick up the efficient accounting workflows.
