Revolutionise Your Finances: Event Recap

On Thursday, 17 March, our Digital Pathfinders Team hosted an online finance workshop alongside Blu Sky Chartered Accountants.

This event provided an in-depth review of a range of different digital finance tools, how they work, and the advantages of using them instead of more traditional finance methods.

This blog will highlight some of the key points made during the event, which was delivered by Blu Sky's Dave Gibson, Ali Netherwood and Jonny Smith.

Digital Finance Tools

The future is calling, and it is bringing digital finance tools with it. This goes beyond the mobile banking and contactless payments that many of us are already familiar with and is moving towards cloud-based accounting software and smart bookkeeping tools.

Processes that would have taken 30 minutes in the past are now taking just a couple of minutes, saving users money in the longer term. Not just this, but with these digital tools doing most of the work, accuracy rates are higher than those with the margins of human error and, of course, the benefits for the environment are huge.

Blu Sky took us through a whole range of different financial technologies. Gone are the days of manually inputting numbers for purchase invoices and receipts. With smart bookkeeping tools like Dext, your details are automatically inputted with 99% accuracy all by simply emailing or photographing receipts to the software. This then sends the details over to your accounting software, like Xero, to link the invoices with incoming and outgoing bank payments.

Debt chasing no longer has to be a chore either. Automated, personalised tools like Chaser integrate with your online banking to send out debt chasing emails once it recognises that invoices are overdue without you having to lift a finger. Even things like cashflow prediction have been digitised with cloud accounting software, like Fluidly, making this process a lot quicker and more accurate than manual data inputs.

When is it a good idea to go digital?

“Ask yourself where you want to be in two years, start now!” - Dave Gibson, CEO of Blu Sky

• Digitising your finances doesn’t have to be something that you do all in one go. Making the move in bite-sized chunks is a great way of ensuring that the process is as smooth as possible and gives you the time to adapt to each stage.
• Whether you are a small or medium business, it is much easier to move over to digital finance solutions whilst your business is smaller, so consider this within your growth plans.
• Whilst digital finance tools are made to make things as simple as possible for their users, it is still important to do some research into which tools will work best for your business. Make sure to carve out a little time to have a look into the various tools that you are considering using.
• Don’t forget that there is support out there to help you with this process and it isn’t something you need to jump into right away.

About Blu Sky

Blu Sky is a cloud-based chartered accounting business from the North East and advocates for the use of digital tools when it comes to finance and accounting. The company helps businesses learn about and determine the financial technology that is right for them, look after their accounts and support with investment rounds.

Have a look at Blu Sky's website for more information.

Our Digital Pathfinders Programme

Introducing digital technology into your business can be a challenging process, but it isn’t something that you have to take on alone. Our free Digital Pathfinders programme provides digital support to SMEs, charities and social enterprises across Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland.

If you’d like to find out more, you can access the website here or send an email to hello@digitalpathfinders.uk.

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