Strong open likely, page-122

published overnight - https://www.cchdaily.co.uk/deloitte-invests-ps25m-launch-sme-accounting-and-analytics-service - assuming its 9SP hopefully it gets announced.

Deloitte has become the latest of the Big Four to target the start-up and SME accounting market, with the announcement of a £2.5m investment to launch Propel, a cloud-based service offering combining record keeping and analytics

Propel offers clients a full bookkeeping and accounting service on a monthly subscription. The company’s data is then fed into a bespoke dashboard to give a real-time view of their financial performance.

Deloitte says the dashboard allows companies to monitor key metrics such as business growth, gross profit and sales by day. It also analyses non-financial data gathered through apps, ranging from web traffic to top selling products, to generate a more accurate picture of business performance.

Katie Houldsworth, Deloitte’s innovation partner for audit, said: ‘We’ve built this service to help start-ups and SMEs grow. It is designed to deliver insight and address some of the longstanding headaches entrepreneurs and their management teams can face.

‘When developing Propel, we collaborated with our 20 pilot clients to understand what makes a difference to their businesses.  As a result, we now offer additional business planning support to supplement the dashboard and core accounting service. For example, we can help with cashflow forecasting, creating budgets and attracting investment.’

Propel is funded by Deloitte’s innovation investments scheme, which encourages its entrepreneurial employees to turn start-up ideas into businesses.

Houldsworth said: ‘The Propel team has been put through its paces over the last 12 months. They’ve acted as a lean start-up to get the Propel business idea off the ground, including pitching for funding and working with a limited budget.

‘To make the idea work, the team had to challenge the way we do things, incorporating automation into our everyday work. They are now exploring how we might implement robotics.’
KPMG in particular has made great play of moving into the SME market, and in September last year announced an alliance with Metro Bank in a bid to build its small business portfolio.