For finance managers with a December year-end, January can be a long and busy month. As well as keeping stakeholders informed on performance, putting together the accounts and preparing for audits, we hopefully have a realistic budget in place for the coming year.
During these uncertain economic times the need to control costs and cash is forefront in the minds of all managers, not just the finance professional.
Costs such as office service charges, healthcare costs and group risk insurance premiums can be difficult to manage as it’s often the case that actual costs for the year are not known until the end of the billing period, when an under or over charge is calculated.
Ellipse’s processes ensure our client billing reflects the cover in a more dynamic way. Our clients can choose to provide us with updated employee data, monthly, quarterly or annually. By opting for more frequent updates the client advises us of salary changes, leavers and joiners when they occur rather than at the end of year, meaning they pay for the cover they have as close as possible to the period they have it.
When a lot of companies are downsizing and making changes to their workforce, the chance to have this reduced cost reflected in insurance premiums earlier rather than later is a definite plus. If your scheme is ’unit rated’ and your workforce has got younger and smaller in the rate guarantee period you will be paying too much – sometimes quite a bit too much.
It seems a bit counterintuitive to say that providing data quarterly will mean less work. But providing data close to the point where it is current is easy; providing it at a date in the past is always a chore.
All this begs the question, why run your budget and forecast your cash flow blindfolded when you no longer have to?
