Blog

Overview

We took over this client from an existing bookkeeper who was maintaining the accounting records for the various companies on Sage.  The client was involved in software and technology and helping clients get their software programs to talk to each other so reducing manual intervention into data streams.  Given this it made sense that the finance function should also adopt more modern technology and practices.

The Problems

With a desire to grow the business and a lack of a way to connect their sales invoice program to their accounting software and also a manual process for recording purchase invoices it was clear the current financial processes would not scale as the business grows. Given the lack of automation and manual systems and processes it meant that the records were not up to date and it was difficult to meet statutory deadlines for VAT filing and year end accounts filing.  In addition, the business had no formal management meeting structure to the business.

The Solution

Firstly, we needed to undertake a full assessment to determine if a transfer from the existing system to Xero would be suitable for the business. It gave us the opportunity to consider how the client could use a cloud based accounting platform to drive efficiencies within the accounting function and provide better, more accurate information.

Our conclusion was that not only would they benefit from improved efficiencies, but that management would also be able to make quicker and better informed decisions, with access to up to date management reporting. This could all be achieved with a migration to Xero.

Set Up

The first step was to migrate the existing data from Sage across to Xero and with lots of data checks along the way to ensure the balances agreed, it meant that we could optimise the setup whilst minimising any legacy issues.

With the set up of Xero there were integrations with other systems to consider:-

• Banks – we introduced live feeds from bank accounts allowing the client to view their cash position in real-time
• Sales invoice system – we worked with the client’s sales invoicing system so that data could be exported across to Xero 
• Data entry – we introduced additional functionality with Hubdoc to assist with the streamlining of the supplier invoice entry and receipt management
• Reporting – we introduced Fathom reporting which allowed the client to view the various businesses as a whole as well as being able to assess each entity individually.

Following on from the introduction of a more efficient and streamlined accounting system it was then possible for timely management information to be prepared each month.  With this information we worked with the business to introduce a formal management meeting structure each month. Over time these meetings developed and added more direction to the business and helped the business to grow eventually leading to the point where third party equity investment was raised to enable the business to grow to the next level.

Weblink for client: https://www.wearepatchworks.com/