The Modern Accountant Weekly Newsletter | 🔍 How Accountability Edinburgh Cut Payment Time by 90%

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Editors Pick 📣

How Accountability Edinburgh Cut Payment Time by 90%

Bookkeeping Partner of the Year at the 2024 Xero Awards, Accountability Edinburgh shares how they transformed payroll and supplier payments for their clients using payment integrations. From reducing weekly payment runs from 4 hours to just 20 minutes, to eliminating human error and building client trust, this case study is packed with practical insight.

For those at Accountex - swing by Stand 783 to catch how Modulr is helping leading firms automate the most time-consuming parts of payments—without the hassle.

Industry Insights 🔎

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION POLICY

ICAEW Advocates Phased Voluntary Adoption Of E-Invoicing In The United Kingdom

ICAEW’s firm backing of e-invoicing highlights a crucial inflection point for UK businesses. Rather than a rushed mandate, they advocate for a thoughtful, phased approach—prioritising voluntary adoption and giving companies breathing room until at least 2030. Drawing on international successes, ICAEW demonstrates that e-invoicing improves productivity, slashes costs, and sharpens tax compliance while mitigating the risks of hurried, one-size-fits-all implementation.

What stands out is their call for a decentralised e-invoicing model built on international standards, echoing what’s worked for European peers. This isn’t just a forward-looking upgrade—it’s a chance for the UK to remedy its lag and invite greater capital investment. By recommending real-time reporting be introduced cautiously and supporting further consultation, ICAEW balances innovation with pragmatism, offering a robust blueprint for digital transformation in eCommerce and beyond.

ACCOUNTEX LAUNCH - TAX TECHNOLOGY

QuickBooks Launches MTD Platform For Landlords And Multi-Income Taxpayers

QuickBooks’ fresh approach to Making Tax Digital (MTD) directly addresses the complexity faced by the nearly 1.9 million UK taxpayers with multiple income sources. By rolling out a unified digital platform that streamlines everything from quarterly HMRC reports to daily bookkeeping, QuickBooks offers a much-needed solution for landlords, side-hustlers, and anyone juggling various revenue streams—an audience too often ignored by traditional accounting software.

ACCOUNTING TECHNOLOGY

Capium 365 Simplifies MTD Record-Keeping for Accountants and Clients

Capium 365 is stepping in to demystify the looming complexity of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for income tax with its streamlined record-keeping tool. Instead of clients fumbling through spreadsheets and emails, this standalone module enables seamless document uploads—be it invoices or receipts—via mobile, desktop, or even a designated email inbox. With features like unlimited bank feeds, automated transaction categorisation, and bank reconciliation, it targets the core pain points that often slow accountants and clients alike.

ACCOUNTING TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION

Lease Accounting Requires Advanced Software As Regulatory Standards and Complexity Intensify

Lease accounting has evolved from a checklist exercise into a cornerstone of modern financial governance, especially with new standards like IFRS 16, FRS 102, and ASC 842 making compliance more complex than ever. Relying on spreadsheets today leaves finance teams exposed – they’re easily broken, hard to audit, and often depend on a few key individuals, which magnifies risk when staff change.

Purpose-built lease accounting software now offers a smarter alternative, providing transparency, automation, and scalability across entire lease portfolios. With integrated data flows and AI-driven logic, platforms like MRI Software not only reduce errors and audit headaches, but free finance professionals to focus on strategic work rather than spreadsheet firefighting. In this climate of rising scrutiny and regulatory demand, now is the moment for firms—especially mid-sized businesses—to upgrade, improve resilience, and futureproof their reporting.

EMPLOYMENT TRENDS

UK Employers Scale Back Hiring Amid Tax Increases And Policy Uncertainty

Employers in the UK are facing a real planning nightmare, with hiring confidence tumbling to record lows outside the pandemic era. Major new tax hikes—£25 billion worth under Chancellor Rachel Reeves, including higher National Insurance and a minimum wage jump—have sent the net employment balance into a nosedive, while additional labour reforms further muddy the waters. Retailers, in particular, are battening down the hatches, with only 1 in 10 looking to add staff, and job cuts now seriously on the table across sectors.

Business leaders warn that such policy turbulence makes strategic planning almost “impossible”, citing a toxic mix of rising costs and unpredictable employment laws. While the government claims these changes will drive long-term fairness, companies are stuck in firefighting mode, focusing on survival rather than growth. The next quarter will show whether firms can adapt—or if this hiring chill hardens into a deeper freeze.

TRADE POLICY SHIFT

UK-US Trade Deal Reduces Tariffs For Steel, Cars, And Agricultural Exports

The new UK-US trade deal delivers a meaningful win for the steel, automotive, and agriculture sectors. The removal of 25% tariffs on British steel and aluminium and the creation of a tariff-free beef quota offer much-needed relief to ailing industries, while the reduction of automobile tariffs opens doors for up to 100,000 vehicles—a major boost for UK exporters. The promise of preferential treatment from the US if future tariffs arise adds an extra layer of security for British businesses navigating global uncertainty.

Notably, the agreement leaves some sectors—like pharmaceuticals—waiting on further details, underscoring that comprehensive access is not yet universal. While digital trade facilitation has been mentioned, specifics are thin, reminding us these deals are often works in progress. Still, the deal sets the stage for renewed business confidence and underscores the potential for the UK and US to lead in fostering trustworthy, growth-driven eCommerce and trade.

Expert Opinion 🙌🏻

Why Manual Reconciliation is Quietly Costing Accountancy Practices Valuable Time and Profit

From conversations with accountants serving niche sectors such as property investment, owner-managed businesses, and post-Brexit international trade and customs, a recurring yet overlooked challenge consistently arises—manual reconciliation. For accounting teams at firms serving cross-border operations (made more complex by continually evolving post-brexit trade and customs regulations), manually matching transaction data across multiple systems, banking providers, customs declarations, and client records is far from trivial. These subtle yet persistent mismatches can quietly drain resources, increasing operational costs and reducing profitability.

Take property investment as an example. Complex property portfolios often involve numerous transactions—tenant payments, supplier invoices, mortgage payments, and service charges—all flowing through separate accounts and financial institutions. Each transaction presents a new potential point of discrepancy, demanding rigorous, time-consuming manual checks to maintain accuracy.

Similarly, post-Brexit trade and customs have significantly amplified reconciliation complexities. Accountants dealing with cross-border trade now face intricate reconciliations involving multiple currencies, VAT obligations, customs duties, and extensive import/export documentation. Each international transaction increases the risk of errors in reconciliation, potentially leading to costly financial and regulatory penalties if not meticulously managed. What's surprising is the amount of people who still rely on outdated, manual practices.  

Industry benchmarks suggest manual reconciliation errors can cost professional practices up to 3-5% of their transaction volume annually—translating directly into lost revenue and heightened risk exposure.

However, forward-thinking accounting practices are increasingly adopting embedded payment automation as a sophisticated solution. Embedded finance seamlessly integrates automated, API-driven payments within existing accounting workflows, eliminating manual matching processes. For instance, real-time transaction matching through embedded APIs significantly reduces reconciliation tasks from days to minutes, proactively flagging discrepancies, simplifying VAT reconciliation, and automatically aligning customs duties payments with corresponding import/export documentation.

By subtly upgrading reconciliation processes with embedded finance, modern accountancy practices can quietly boost profitability, minimize operational risk, and enhance the quality of service they offer clients—all without disrupting established workflows.