Key takeaways Accountants’ hidden hours include the advice, reassurance and coordination surrounding their core services. The Hidden Hours of Accountancy research from Sage found that 81% of accountants work outside their scope, highlighting how widely support extends beyond the agreed brief. Accountants can discuss current figures with clients without waiting for records to arrive. But […]
HR has never had a longer to-do list. Compliance rules keep moving, hiring volumes are climbing, teams are spread across sites, shifts and time zones, and leaders want better people data on demand. For most small and mid-sized businesses, all of that lands on one or two people. UK employers felt it this year. New […]
Key takeaways Sage used the UK Government’s Software Security Code of Practice to assess its established security, governance, and assurance practices across the Copilot Factory Framework (CFF). The assessment showed that embedding security throughout software design, development, deployment, and maintenance helps create more resilient AI-powered services. The assessment validated established security practices, including access reviews, third-party dependency […]
Six in ten (61%) Leeds workers moved to the city from elsewhere, compared to half (52%) in Manchester, according to new research from Employment Hero Proprietary Employment Hero data shows employment at small businesses in Leeds grew 12.1% in the three months to September, five times the rate in Manchester (2.4%) Leeds is now a […]
More small businesses are now recording income and expenses directly in the banking and business apps they use every day. But that doesn’t remove the need for professional accounting advice. In fact, it can create new opportunities to support clients, particularly those who are still building confidence with digital record-keeping. Clients still need your expertise […]
Daniella Angel has spent nearly fifteen years in talent acquisition, agency and in-house, hiring everyone from entry level to executive. For most of those years she’d read every CV herself. Daniella had tried AI scoring on and off (with other tools) but had written it off. Then one role brought in 3,994 applications. Now, Daniella […]
The CFO role has always included two jobs: keeping score and shaping strategy. What’s changed is the balance between them. Deloitte’s Finance Trends 2026 report, based on a survey of 1,326 global finance leaders, found that 57% now play a leading role in shaping their organisation’s strategy, and that these strategy-influencing leaders manage 20% more […]
Most businesses don’t decide against changing payroll providers. They just decide they’re too busy and they’ll “do it later.” And later probably seems reasonable. There’s a lot on, the current system “basically” works, and nobody wants to be the person who broke payday. So switching payroll providers goes on the list for the next quarter, […]
A finance system that worked well at £10 million in revenue doesn’t always keep pace at £30 million. That’s rarely because the software broke. It’s because growth changes what a finance system needs to do, and the gap between what it does and what the business now needs widens quietly, month by month, until someone […]
Getting the go-ahead to hire is supposed to be good news. Budget approved, help on the way, someone to take work off the team. Then the applications start arriving. 200 by Friday. 2,000 by the end of the month. And the person who has to read them is doing it at 9pm, because their day […]
