Jessica, Author at The Happy Finance Team

3rd July 202024th August 2021

A happier annual budgeting process

When I had more junior finance roles in larger organisations, I often found the annual budgeting process to be somewhere between traumatic and soul-destroying. Week after week of meetings and emails and multiple versions of clunky spreadsheets.

So when I became a Finance Director, I thought long and hard about what made organisational budgeting so awful. I then identified four key components of a happier budgeting process;

alignment
training
tools
trust

This post explores these further.

24th June 202023rd January 2025

Choosing a new EPOS system – hospitality

A good Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) system can make your business run much more smoothly. However, there are lots of systems out there which do very different things and lots of pushy salespeople. So it’s very easy to be seduced by something that looks fancy but turns out to be difficult to customise for your business.

In this post I set out a few things to consider if you want a new EPOS system.

15th June 202022nd January 2025

Preparing a year end accounts model

I’ve written more generally about how to have a smooth year end accounts process. This is a more specific piece about how to build an audit-friendly year end accounts model.

I’ve included examples for download to illustrate the principles.

If all this sounds interesting but you don’t have the time, you could always ask me to build a model for you!

10th June 202022nd January 2025

Choosing a new finance system

I wrote a while back about whether you really needed a new finance system.

If you’re reviewing your accounting system I would always recommend you go through these checks first. Having done this and decided that you definitely do need something different, how do you go about choosing a new finance system?

5th June 202010th June 2020

Finance team recruitment

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

With over ten years experience in senior finance positions, I’ve recruited quite a few finance team members, and helped others do the same. I’ve learned what works for me when it comes to finance team recruitment.

Most of this is applicable to any candidate search process but I’ve added a few thoughts throughout about what might be different about recruiting finance team members.

26th May 202026th May 2020

Process Improvement: the weekly shop

Business process improvement - post-it notes and mapping exercises. — Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash

Sometimes external circumstances force process improvement upon you.

Businesses across the world are changing rapidly to deal with the enormity of the changes that the plague has thrust upon us. Customer interactions and supply chains have transformed overnight.

Meanwhile, in the domestic sphere, I have achieved a reduction in a routine task from approx 3 hours a week to just half an hour. The task?

Shopping.

19th May 202022nd January 2025

How to be a good Excel user

What do you need to learn to be “good at Excel”? What Excel training should be mandatory for finance teams?

I really rate the ICAEW’s spreadsheet competency framework as a tool to use to diagnose where you and your team are at and where you should be. It breaks down users into four types – Basic, General, Creator and Developer – and allocates the skills that each level should have.

This is much more helpful to me than users saying that they are “intermediate” or “advanced” users. When I recruit for roles I often use the framework in the job description.

14th May 202014th May 2020

Business planning: Roadmaps through uncertainty

Business planning can be full of jargon and buzzwords. I used to think that “roadmap” was one of these – an output used to disguise a lack of a more detailed plan.

I’m changing my view on this quite rapidly. I now think that, as with most business jargon, the roadmap has a place and is meaningful if done properly.

11th May 202011th May 2020

Balance Sheet Reconciliations

Matching = Reconciling — Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Balance sheet reconciliations are a key component of regular accounting to ensure that your transactions are correct. They help you detect issues such as missing transactions or failure of controls or process. This article sets out what they are, what they’re for and how to do them.

7th May 202011th May 2020

Mental health in the workplace – the ACE approach

Managing mental health in the workplace is really important to me. I want to be happy, and I want my teams and people I work with to be happy too. I once worked for a mental health charity and picked up a few tools for thinking about and managing wellbeing and mental health.

This post explains the ACE approach – Achieve, Connect, Enjoy. In one sentence – we need to achieve a balance of these things in our daily lives.