Author: Perry

Key takeaways A financial close checklist standardises reconciliations, reviews and sign-off into one repeatable sequence. It matters most when teams change, systems change, or transaction volume grows. Good checklists separate pre-close prep, in-close tasks, and post-close review. Month-end and year-end checklists share a core structure, but year-end adds extra review steps. Financial management software turns a static checklist into a tracked, auditable workflow. A financial close checklist is the step-by-step list finance teams work through to reconcile accounts, review transactions and finalise the ledger before reporting on a period. For financial controllers and finance managers at mid-sized, growing UK B2B…

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Jack Wallen/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysDicio is a solid replacement for Google Assistant.Dicio handles basic tasks very well (including hands-free calling).The free app’s main drawback is that it does not work with Android Auto.I recently wrote about the problems Gemini has with reliably making hands-free calls. Given that Assistant handled this task with ease and predictability, it’s worrisome that Google is set on permanently tossing Assistant aside, without having solved this hands-free issue.  When I learned that Google Assistant would be discontinued next month, I decided to look for an alternative. That search led…

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Key PointsThe “Magnificent Seven” group of stocks leads the market. This group dominates the rankings of the world’s largest companies, with the smallest still ranking as the 11th-largest company. It’s made up of: Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) All seven of these stocks have been major success stories, but their performance in 2026 has been mixed. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is up about 13% this year, and only two of the stocks are outperforming it: Amazon and Nvidia. That’s a…

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AI isn’t just for large corporations but for small businesses, too, offering the power to transform operations, improve customer experiences, and boost efficiency.  One expert in the use of AI for business is Heather Murray, who specialises in training non-technical people in the use of Microsoft Copilot. Heather talked to Sound Advice podcast host Bex Burn-Callander to demystify AI for anyone wondering how to harness its potential in business and daily life.  With her deep passion and enthusiasm, Murray cuts out all the jargon to make this tech accessible for everyone. In this new digital age, businesses must adapt and keep up with…

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You can reduce business admin and create more time for growth planning by outsourcing routine tasks, automating repetitive work, and using cloud-based tools to streamline how work is managed and shared.  Starting a business often means following a passion, but without these steps, the day-to-day reality can quickly pull your attention away from the work you set out to do. Invoicing, bookkeeping, emails, scheduling, file management, and other admin tasks can all take up time that could otherwise be spent serving customers or growing the business.  Recent research by office equipment supplier Ricoh found that UK employees spend an average of 15…

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On 11 July, Hugging Face was subjected to an intense cyberattack from a then-unknown actor. The speed and coordination of the attack on the company that hosts and supports popular AI developer resources led Hugging Face’s security team to conclude it was the work of an AI agent. Realizing this, the team tried to use “frontier models behind commercial APIs”—presumably from Anthropic and OpenAI, although only Anthropic was named in the second of the company’s two posts about the security incident—to analyze the onslaught. These models refused to help due to safety guardrails the AI labs have implemented to make…

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