Profile: Alan Tudo, Financial Controller, Westgate Community Initiatives Group Alan Tudo knew that his team was spending too many hours creating reports for not-for-profit Westgate Community Initiatives Group. The organisation provides a mix of services including employment, social enterprise and education, through 14 hubs in Victoria, Australia. Unfortunately, Tudo’s team didn’t have the technical skills […]
CFO Profile: Michael Carter, CFO, Social Futures After a seven-year growth spurt that saw staff numbers rise from 120 to 330, not-for-profit Social Futures was pushing its accounting software to its limits. During that time, CFO Michael Carter ran a lean, four-person finance team, despite revenues rising from $18 million to $35 million. The business […]
CFO Profile: Peter Jones, CFO, Westhaven Peter Jones arrived in the aftershock of a shakeup at community-based charity Westhaven. The not-for-profit, turning over $50 million a year, had attempted to implement an on-premise ERP two years earlier which had ultimately been unsuccessful. The failure had a profound knock-on effect to the business; a new CEO […]
CFO Profile: Sandra Saristavros, Simon De Winter Sandra Saristavros knew she wasn’t going to have any weekends for the next couple of months. After splitting with a major shareholder, the intimate apparel wholesaler Simon De Winter had to go through a dramatic upheaval that would affect nearly every part of the company. “We were putting […]
CFO Profile: Kristina White, Omnia Inclusive Employment Solutions Kristina White knew that Omnia Inclusive Employment Solutions, an inclusive employment agency operating in NSW and Queensland, needed a better financial system to achieve its business goals. These goals included reducing the time frontline staff were spending on administrative tasks, and improving the speed and detail of […]
Other Xero On Air coverage: CEO Steve Vamos on Adding Lending to Xero The limitations of Xero Practice Manager (XPM) have long frustrated growing Xero firms, as has the lack of integration with Xero Workpapers and Xero “blue”. The company announced At this year’s virtual get-together, Xero On Air, that it was finally fixing this […]
Other Xero On Air coverage: Xero’s plans to turn Xero HQ into a CRM for Accountants One of Xero’s biggest moves this year was its acquisition of invoice-funding service Waddle. Xero bundled its previous acquisition, receipt processing and document-fetching tool HubDoc, within a Xero subscription. It also incorporated some of its technology into Xero itself. […]
Here’s a list of software discounts and specials (usually three months free) to help businesses keep trading through the Coronavirus lockdown and its aftermath. It is a free page of resources, collected from various locations and through direct requests I’ve made to software companies. Some notes: The list is organised by industry, apart from horizontal […]
The conventional theory for running an accounting practice says that you should split revenue by three. A third for wages, a third for overheads, and a third for partner profit. The ratio may fluctuate slightly. Overheads are falling with more automation, less admin, more offshoring and staff working from home. At the same time, staff […]
Can a software package really help you ‘unlock growth’? Can you just flick a switch and see your revenue climb? While it takes a lot to translate code into cash, I certainly agree that slow, rigid, restrictive software can hinder a business’ growth. “Unlocking growth” was the theme of Oracle Netsuite’s SuiteConnect conference in Sydney […]
Additional reporting by Inbal Rodnay Steinberg Within seconds of meeting Greg Ellis it’s clear that the new MYOB will be a very different beast to that led by his predecessor, Tim Reed. Private equity owners KKR have parachuted in a clear-eyed, straight talking CEO who knows what he wants and knows how to get it. […]
