FloQast has announced that it has been selected by Halfords, a UK-based retailer of monitoring, cycling, and leisure products and services, to improve its risk and controls processes.
Leveraging FloQast’s services underlines Halfords’ proactive approach in its preparations for the new Provision 29 requirements, set to come into effect on 1 January 2026.
With these changes, companies across the UK will have to monitor their entire internal control framework throughout the year and conduct an annual review of the effectiveness across financial, operational, compliance, and reporting controls. Additionally, businesses will be required to disclose in their annual report how the review was carried out, a board-level declaration of control effectiveness, and any material control failures, as well as the actions taken or planned to mitigate them.
Simplifying compliance
As part of this agreement, Halfords is set to utilise FloQast to further optimise its internal controls environment, improving collaboration, transparency, and efficiency across its business operations. Considering that Provision 29 will expand the scope to cover operational compliance and reporting risks, the company decided to work with FloQast to unite all processes on a single platform.
Implementing FloQast’s services will allow Halfords to better manage material risks and controls across all areas of the business, with simplified workflows enabling the company to capture the signoff and evidence of controls operating, while dashboards will deliver real-time visibility and augmented reporting. Additionally, the automation of evidence collection minimises manual tasks for the Internal Controls team, allowing it to focus its efforts on high-value activities, including process improvement, strategic risk management, and offering insights back to the business.
Moreover, FloQast’s Compliance Management service delivers a centralised risk and control process, with the flexibility to integrate into existing systems. The partnership promises to support Halfords in minimising administrative complexities while scaling visibility and assisting in its expansion as its compliance needs evolve. Commenting on the move, representatives from FloQast emphasised that, as more organisations across the UK start recognising the importance of optimising internal controls to meet regulatory requirements and streamline their operations, working with Halfords allows the company to assist the latter’s proactive approach.
Further drawing on this point, Halfords added that, with this collaboration, it creates a single source of truth that builds its controls environment, delivering all material controls into a single place. The clear workflow will enable teams to complete their activities more efficiently, and by modernising how it operates, the firm can continue to advance its operations more confidently.
