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Introducing Metric's VAT Revolution: Transforming UAE Business Finances!

Introducing Metric’s VAT Revolution: Transforming UAE Business Finances!

For our valued Metric users in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we’re excited to introduce a game-changing feature – VAT Integration! Simplify your tax management and streamline your finances with ease. Managing Value Added Tax (VAT) has never been this effortless. How It Works Adding VAT to your transactions is now as simple as 1-2-3: Enter Transaction Details:  When adding income or expense transactions, ensure you input all the necessary information. Toggle VAT On:  With just a tap, you can add VAT to the current transaction. Automatic VAT Calculation:  Metric will perform the VAT calculation for you, instantly displaying the net total amount. Submit and Invoice:  Mark the payment status, indicate who made the payment, and submit. Your transaction, along with VAT, will seamlessly appear on your invoice. Why VAT Integration Matters The benefits of VAT Integration are transformational for businesses: Effortless VAT Inclusion:  Easily add VAT to your transactions, reducing the risk of tax-related errors. Automatic VAT Calculation:  Say goodbye to manual calculations as Metric handles the math, displaying the net total amount. Enhanced Invoicing:  Your invoices become clearer and more transparent, ensuring compliance with tax regulations. Government Reporting:  Keep track of what you owe to the government and what you’re owed, simplifying your tax compliance. For a comprehensive overview of your VAT amounts and transactions, the VAT report is at your fingertips. It’s time to simplify your financial management and stay in control of your finances effortlessly with Metric. Ready to Experience the Ease of VAT Integration? Discover the convenience of VAT Integration now! Head to our app – Metric and elevate your financial management to new heights. Streamline your taxes, simplify your finances, and take control of your financial future with Metric. It’s your partner in financial success!

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Business insights for business growth

7 Ways Business Insights Can Help You Grow Your Business

In the business world, data serves as a roadmap to knowing customers better and the insights derived from that data prove to be crucial for unlocking growth and success.  With the right business insights, you can make informed decisions, stay ahead of the competition, and provide an enhanced experience to your customers. In a world where your competition is already more aware of your business and knows what you know, customer insights serve as an advantage to not only keep your business afloat but to also make it grow.  In this blog, we’ll explore how you can use business insights to drive your business forward. What are Business Insights? Business insights are pieces of information (drawn from different sources) that are backed by motivation and desired outcomes. The data shows how consumers are engaging with a business, why they are engaging the way they are, and why no one has identified this problem before to offer a better solution. The insights are then analyzed by businesses to make better decisions, and this process is called business intelligence. Let’s look at the example of Uber to better understand business intelligence and explore how brands leverage business intelligence to better serve their customers. Uber uses business intelligence tools to analyze data on past ride requests, driver availability, weather, and other factors to forecast demand for rides in different locations and at different times.  By accurately forecasting demand, Uber can ensure that there are enough drivers available to meet the demand and reduce wait times for riders. Now, this brings us to the question: how can brands use customer insights to fuel growth and employ strategies to make better decisions? Let’s have a look at some of those ways.  7 Ways Business Insights Can Drive Business Growth A McKinsey report revealed, businesses that leverage customer analytics are 23 times more likely to top their competitors and 19 times more likely to stay profitable. There’s great potential in harnessing customer insights to incorporate processes in the business that better serve the customers. Here are 7 ways businesses can employ customer insights to drive better results.  #1 Improve the Product This is the part where you as a business owner need to identify your target audience and listen to what they’re saying about your product and what improvements are they suggesting.  Before taking action on their suggestions, make sure to dig deeper to identify why they’re saying what they’re saying and what issue they want you to resolve. While you’re at it, keep track of all the customer suggestions along with the problem they’re having. Once you’ve gathered enough insight, work on improving the product, introduce it in the market, and let the customers know the changes you’ve made based on their suggestions — this helps in converting customers into raving fans.  #2 Provide Tailored Experience to Customers Customers love targeted experiences when interacting with businesses in different sectors. Not only that, they now expect businesses to provide them with a more personalized experience.  By using tools like Metric, you can discover emerging trends in your industry and stay ahead of the curve to provide a tailored experience to your customers.  #3 Enhance Customer Communication By speaking directly with your customers, you can gauge what messages are being heard by them and what are not getting through.  While doing so, you can identify the gaps in your messaging, and then, reiterate your message through different channels to inform your customers about a feature of your product that they aren’t aware of yet.  This can, in return, help provide a solution to a problem that they otherwise wouldn’t have known existed. If you do this, you can provide an enhanced communication experience for your customers. #4 Send Targeted Promotional Messages By leveraging customer data, preferences, and buying history, you can send targeted promotional messages to customers that are most likely to make a purchase.  Retailers can enhance their operating margins by as much as 60% through proficient promotions and other data and analytics-driven initiatives. #5 Efficiently Price the Product Businesses leave money on the table if they don’t correctly price their products. A wrong pricing mistake often leads to losses in the business.  With business analytics, you can base the price of the products that the customers are willing to pay. Read our blog on pricing mistakes to avoid to maintain the financial health of your business. #6 Make Better Marketing Content One of the most important uses of gathering data and analyzing it is to make content that resonates with the target market to make them feel more heard. Observing what language and phrases your customers use when describing your product or service can help you create a marketing copy that directly speaks to your target audience.  This will encourage them to identify with your business, and consequently, attract extra search traffic.  You can even use customer insights to create testimonials, case studies, and inspiring content like blogs and social media posts.  If you make content that resonates with your customers, they will be compelled to share it with their network which will help reach your message to a wider audience.  As a business, you need to ask your customers about their experiences and struggles and use their feedback to improve your marketing and content strategies. Make it an integral part of your customer interaction process to provide a better experience.  #7 Build Long-term Relationships with Customers Businesses can leverage data analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can be used to personalize their experience and deliver targeted marketing campaigns.  By using data to better understand customers, businesses can create a more immersive and relevant marketing experience for their target audience, which will ultimately make them feel valued and lead to increased customer engagement, loyalty, and revenue. Conclusion As a business owner, you need to use customer insights to grow and succeed in today’s competitive market. Plus, there’s data to back this notion.  By gathering and analyzing data on customer behavior,

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7 Productivity Tools to Boost the Efficiency of Your Small Business

If you’re running a small business, you know how overwhelming it can be to keep up with all the tasks that need to be done every day. That’s why automation using productivity tools is crucial for your business because it ensures everything is accomplished efficiently and effectively.  So, whether you’re looking to increase your team’s effectiveness or simply become more organized, our selection of time-saving resources will provide you with the right answers. Productivity Tools to Boost Business Efficiency #1 Trello Trello is an online project management tool that helps small businesses organize and prioritize their tasks. It allows you to create boards, lists, and cards, which you can use to track progress and collaborate with team members. It also lets you integrate with other productivity tools such as Slack, Google Drive, and Dropbox for your business. Benefits for Small Businesses It makes you save time by creating lists, delegating work, and monitoring the task until its completion. Here are some other benefits: #2 Asana Asana is another project management tool that lets you manage your tasks, projects, and teams. It offers a variety of features, including task assignments, deadlines, and progress tracking. You can integrate it with other productivity tools such as Slack, Google Drive, and Dropbox. Benefits for Small Businesses You can use it to increase transparency in employee tasks and efficiency, streamline processes, and simplify routines. Here are some added benefits: #3 Buffer Buffer is a social media management platform that provides affordable, intuitive marketing tools for small businesses. It lets you integrate with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, etc. Benefits for Small Businesses You can use the platform’s built-in posting, interaction, and social media tracking tools to grow your native user base. The capabilities of Buffer include the following: #4 Metric Metric is a financial intelligence app that allows you to monitor important financial metrics such as revenue, expenses, profit, average order value (AOV), and customer acquisition cost (CAC) in real-time, giving you a clear and concise overview of your financial situation.  Benefits for Small Businesses #5 Slack An instant messaging app that lets you easily communicate with your team members. It offers a variety of features like real-time messaging, file sharing, and video calls. You can integrate it with other productivity tools such as Trello, Asana, and Google Drive. Benefits for Small Businesses Slack is great for remote-first companies because it makes continuous collaboration within their digital offices a breeze. The main advantages include: #6 Canva Canva is a visual content creation tool that requires little technical expertise or training to get started using. This platform allows professionals (who are not design experts) to quickly and easily produce high-quality graphics by using premade layouts, photos, and other visual assets. Benefits for Small Businesses #7 Jira Jira, created by Atlassian, is a project management and bug-monitoring software that lets users build, delegate, and monitor projects. By dividing large projects into more manageable chunks, Jira users can better keep their teams ordered and in harmony with one another. Benefits for Small Businesses While the platform’s primary users are software developers, it can be put to use in any field thanks to its useful features for teamwork, communication, and project administration. Here are some added benefits: The Bottom Line As a small business owner, your team’s efficiency is crucial for running your processes smoothly and without errors. However, due to limited resources, you may not have the option to expand your team.  In such a situation, automating certain operations can significantly enhance the overall productivity of your team. By leveraging productivity tools, you can streamline repetitive tasks, optimize workflows, and free up valuable time and resources for more important activities.

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Changes in Customer Behaviour Post-Covid and amidst Inflation

According to data released by the Government of Pakistan, consumer prices rose 13.8% this month from a year earlier. The sudden price hike of fuel and groceries particularly has put us all in a state of panic. Pakistan resides a diverse range of socio-economic classes. While some might not be affected by inflation, some lower their living standards, and others are fighting for survival. One thing that inflation and economic downturns bring is a shift in consumer spending, be it any class. History proves even in severe economic downturns and recessions, some companies are able to gain an advantage.  No two downturns are exactly alike, thus every recession puts marketers in uncharted waters. Although analyzing companies’ strategies that either propelled or undermined their performance through previous recessions and especially covid crisis helps. As a business founder operating in such circumstances, it is your prime goal to identify your customer base, understand the evolving consumption patterns and fine-tune your strategies accordingly.  Before we go on to discuss the shifts in spending behaviours of customers, we must acknowledge all socio-demographics within our country would react differently to inflation and economic downturns. The population of Pakistan consisted of mainly three income classes, that are upper, middle and lower.  A study on the Impact of Inflation on different socio-economic classes A study was conducted in the financial hub of the country, Karachi, surveying people from all three of the mentioned classes. The descriptive statistics discovered that inflation caused a compromising change in the behaviour of consumers from the lower class in terms of the buying capacity and shift to local brands. The study further found little change in both these dimensions among the consumers from the middle class. However, the study did not find any large change in the behaviour of the consumers from the upper class. It concludes that income level is the real determinant of consumer behaviour while inflation is merely a catalyst. Adaption of local products is highest during Inflation The above-mentioned study regarding the impact of inflation on different socio-economic classes shows a shift to local brands among the lower and middle classes. Since the majority of our population lies in these 2 categories, inflation seems like the ideal time to introduce good-quality alternatives to renowned expensive products. Since people are already looking for cheaper alternatives, your product has a high chance of succeeding.  Digital Spending growth among Millennials and High-Income Citizens Once covid became more of a lifestyle than a life threat, the trend of online shopping saw an all-time high all around the globe. Pakistan was no exception in adopting the new-age trends from e-commerce to last-mile deliveries. Though it might have started off as an emergency response to circumstances, the digital future is here to stay. If your company doesn’t have a digital presence that too an active one, your future is arguable.  Loyalty Shake-up A surprising result of the pandemic was an unprecedented level of channel switching and brand loyalty disruption. Gen Z and high earners are most prone to switching brands. Among these, 36 per cent of consumers trying a new product brand and 25 per cent incorporating a new private-label brand as per a report by McKinsey. Most of these converts have continued using these new brands even after the covid crisis. Among other causes including availability, price, and quality, the most common reason for this switching is the reflection of their personal values.  This brings us to our next point, which is purpose-driven consumers.  Purpose-Driven Consumers Purpose-driven consumers, who choose products and brands based on how well they align with their values, now represent the largest segment (44%) of consumers. Society has recently become highly accountable, where celebrities are judged on their opinions and values, and so are brands. Today’s customer chooses brands that depict their values through campaigns or highlighting social issues.  Sustainability The increasing discussions on green living when joined with economic instability, make people more vigilant of the sustainability of the product they are buying. Customers now prefer sustainability over fast fashion. Recycled raw material, zero-waste, increasing shelf-life and re-usable products are most preferred by particularly educated young customers.   Hygiene Transparency Among many things covid taught us, one is the hygiene transparency of services. Though covid has subsided, a new wave can emerge anytime, thus people dining out or availing of other services expect a highly hygienic setup. Restaurants that opened up their kitchens for customers to come and see their working conditions received admiration and popularity both.   Cutback of Non-Essentials  As an individual, the first step we take to survive inflation is cutting down on non-essential items. But the thing is what we consider necessity and luxury. Some brands make their products in a way that builds a narrative of that product being an absolute necessity.  For example, for the longest time, I considered my organic curl shampoo a necessity. The number of benefits it has over ordinary shampoos along with the ads showing what my hair would look like if I stopped using it, I was convinced I needed it no matter what. However, now that I analyze it, it’s all just great marketing that makes me consider an expensive shampoo a necessity. This is the power of great marketing.  Rise of Homebody Economy Surveys showed a huge rise in furniture, home decor and other home-related products amidst the worst of the pandemic. The time people spent at home made them redecorate and equip their houses with more entertainment options. Along with these, there was also a hike in sports apparel and stationery items. When outside activities were restricted people shifted to in-home projects and activities thus increasing the demand for such items.  Similarly, inflation restricts spending on luxury products, services and entertainment. But, everyone needs something to do, and people would probably shift to cheaper entertainment options. This would give rise to some industries, businesses that can provide such items would make money out of this inflation.  Invest in Outdoor Activities The past two years have

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How is Technology Changing Accounting in the World?

Whenever the topic of computers taking over human jobs comes up, accountants are on top of the list. As technology makes its way into accountancy, most repetitive routine accountancy tasks have been automated. This put some in the fear of accountants becoming redundant, however, the results are contrary. Accountants today have become even more essential to companies since they now serve as business advisors.  Every industry had to evolve with the developments in technology, but this change is massive when it comes to accountancy and finance. Every day a new technology transforms some part of traditional accountancy practice. With this rapid evolution, keeping up with modern trends is necessary for accountants to stay relevant.  Technology Trends transforming Accounting  Customer expectations increase along with the progression in technology. The survival and growth of accountants rely on embracing new technologies. In this article, we pen down the technologies that brought massive transformations to the field of accountancy and finance.  Cloud Computing A significant technology trend is working in the cloud. Cloud computing is the storage and accessibility of data online rather than on a hard drive. Cloud computing is significant for accounting since it paves way for all other cutting-edge technologies including AI, big data, IoT and others. As these technologies become more commonplace, the future of accounting is looking decidedly cloud-based. A few of the key features of cloud computing that make it essential are mentioned here: Shifting to cloud-based systems not only simplifies operations and saves storage but additionally allows accountants and clients to analyze data and make decisions based on cutting-edge information. Cloud computing is already a big deal in accounting, learning and implementing it is crucial to grow as a business and to establish your accountancy career. Artificial Intelligence  Artificial intelligence is the most transformative technology of our era. Where the true potential of computer intelligence can still not be determined, it surely has taken over repetitive and routine tasks previously performed by humans. Intelligent behaviour can include learning from experience, determining what is important, handling complex situations, understanding visual images, and being creative or imaginative along with other characteristics.  A few of the key features of AI in accounting are mentioned here: AI can potentially take over complete industries making many professions redundant, but if used smartly can turn out to be a game-changer for your company. By automating rudimentary tasks, it gives accountants freedom to move towards analyzing, decision-making and advisory positions. Incorporating AI results in less workload, organized accounts, speedy sorting through large swaths of data and categorized documentation. This enables accountants to provide efficient recommendations for corporate growth and stability. Big Data Big data can be defined as a collection of large volumes of data, coming at a high velocity, through a variety of sources. Processing these enormous sets of unstructured data is impossible for a traditional server. Today, data is crucial to making business financial decisions. Big data impacts nearly every aspect of the accounting industry.  Data is the fuel that powers other technology trends that are transforming finance and accounting in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Analyzing data in huge volumes at high speed enables accountants to drive valuable insights from the unorganized data which was never possible before. These insights help improve internal operations and build revenue. Thus, big data is one of the most valuable technologies that accountants need to adopt in their business processes.   Mobile Accounting  Mobile accounting is said to be the future of accounting industry. It is the ability to access financial and other business-related information through any mobile device like smartphones, laptops, or tablets to accomplish accounting tasks from anywhere and at any time. Mobile devices are the go-to tool for all operations even for accountants. Mobile apps help accounting firms manage their business while on the move. Any task that earlier on required desktop, accounting software, manual ledgers and excel sheets is now incorporated in a single app making accounting accessible and efficient. Along with accelerated operations on the business end, mobile connectivity also bridges accountants/founders and their clients.  Blockchain The crypto craze is not all fun and games, it has become an integral part of the most important of industries. Blockchain technology is a computer-based recording system that uses cryptocurrency within a user-to-user network. It records all transactions on a public ledger that ensures transparency and security. Such a distributed ledger or blockchain is a highly secure database.  Those who know a little about blockchain understand how it enables smart contracts, facilitates seamless protecting and transferring ownership of assets, verifies people’s identities and credentials, and much more. These features have broad applications in accounting and financial records. Though masses still have their concerns regarding blockchain technology, its adoption in accounting can reduce costs, increase traceability, and enhance security like never before. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Robotic process automation (RPA) is a general set of automation tools for replicating any manual, repetitive process at scale, often by automating manual processes. This technology fully automates labour and time-intensive facets of accounting such as audits, tax preparation, banking, and payroll. RPA empowers humans to focus on strategic operations by delegating run-of-the-mill tasks to robots.  Intelligent automation (IA) is capable of mimicking human interaction and can even understand inferred meaning in client communication and adapt to an activity based on historical data. Process automation establishes and sustains consistency in execution, which results in fewer process errors. Accounting is the language of business. As business is prone o changes in technology, accounting must keep up. Accountants have always been known to embrace technology to their benefit. This is a necessity for them to stay relevant to the customer demand. Understanding and implementing all these technologies is an essential job requirement for a modern-day accountant. As an accountant or a business founder, you need to be tech-savvy. Metric simplifies the adoption of cutting-edge technologies by evolving features incorporating them. Metric recently launched two product updates that integrate AI-based models. You can have a look at them here. 

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