What's in your Pocket?

By Paul Sarjeant

Whenever I drop Spend Management into conversation (which is probably more often than you think), those that don’t stare blankly back at me usually understand it to mean what BravoSolution define as:

“the collection of detailed data extracts from finance and procurement systems, the cleansing and enrichment of this data, followed by the classification of suppliers and items into relevant spend categories.”

But do you know what’s in your own pocket as well as you know what’s in your company’s pocket?

With property prices increasing at an aggressive rate (especially in London), new comprehensive affordability checks for mortgage loans were introduced on 26^th April in the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) by the FSA. The rule has been introduced to stop mortgage applicants from taking out loans they cannot afford.

“In the past too many people got a mortgage by simply telling their lender they would have no problem repaying their debt, and that was that" says FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley. “Our new rules will hard-wire common sense into mortgage lending.”

This will mean banks and building societies will want to fully analyse all personal finances before agreeing to any mortgage deal. Mortgage applicants will be required to provide details on current income, as well as all outgoings: rent, bills, restaurant & holiday expenses etc.

Would you easily be able to provide this information? Even with over 5 years of Spend Analysis expertise at BravoSolution under my belt, I know I could sharpen up a bit more on my own finances.

Here is my top tip for keeping on top of your personal spending…

Use software as a service (SaaS) to help keep on top of what you’re spending! Mobile budgeting apps have recently hit the market promoting easy monitoring of all personal expenses against your income. Some apps can even directly feed in transactional data from your bank accounts, auto categorise these transactions into a category structure, and provide up to date reporting to help you manage your personal expenditure and highlight areas to save money.

Sound familiar?

So, as well as looking for savings opportunities within your business, maybe you should also look a little closer to home?

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