Case Study: Albumedix finance team achieve more in less time with Access software

A simple, integrated system to use with confidence

"I knew I needed to get a new accounts package in very quickly. Ultimately in negotiating the MBO we agreed that we could have 6 months of using our previous system, so we had to have a new package up and ready that we were able to use independently in that 6-month period" says Andy Thorpe, CFO at Albumedix.

Once this period was established, Andy went to market to explore the finance management options available to the company.

“Because we’d used SAGE before we looked at them, but what they offered us seemed to have gone into a very strange direction. Rather than offering an integrated finance, sales, orders, purchase orders and inventory package, all integrated in together, they’d gone into using different apps and there were different companies that would actually write some of the software… it just didn’t give me confidence. How are we to know that this particular app is going to stay with SAGE, will it even be there in 3 years time?”

Having explored alternative options, Andy decided to look at Access financial solutions, following an internal recommendation. 

“We looked at Access because my accounts assistant had used Access at a previous company, she’d used an accounts package from Access and said it had worked well there.”

The fully integrated financial management solution offered by Access suited the needs of the company, and Andy decided to go ahead with implementing it as their finance system.

“In looking at Access it felt that it was going to work for us, and that’s been proven to be the case.”

Do more in less time

Since implementing their Access Financials suite, Andy and his team have been pleased with the benefits they’ve seen from the software, particularly in terms of efficiency. Since implementing the system, Albumedix have seen significant time savings when it comes to previously manual processes.

“Putting on purchase invoices takes a significant amount of time less than it did under our previous system.”

This time saving has given Andy and his team the freedom to achieve more. 

“I have one person who directly works for me and she processes invoices, does the salaries, does a lot of the work leading up towards month-end accounts. She has been able to reduce her hours… and is covering more areas than she was previously. It’s definitely time-saving and so she’s doing more in less time.”

These efficiencies haven’t been limited to Andy’s direct team. Processes have been streamlined across the business, from the finance team to those working in the company’s warehouse, processing invoices. As well as saving the company time, the software has made many processes more intuitive and accurate.

“With our old system as soon as something was slightly odd or you made a slight error trying to work out how to correct things was an absolute nightmare, whereas in general Access is more intuitive and just easier to use… and if we do need to work out how to do something that’s just a little out of the ordinary it’s definitely a lot easier than it was with our previous system.”

Working with their named Customer Success Manager, Albumedix have been able to tailor the system to fit their needs. In doing this the company have been able to streamline their processes and prevent some common errors from occurring.

“When looking at our purchase orders, we want the person raising the purchase order to input the appropriate nominal code. We were having issues where occasionally people missed doing that and it was left as the default which was causing some problems. So our Customer Success Manager wrote a bit of code and now prior to a purchase order being saved the software will check the input and, if necessary, tell the person they can’t save that order until they’ve changed the code. And that just stopped the error happening at source, so that it never became a problem.”

The detail and integration of the system has also given Andy a much better, more comprehensive overview of their operations, and made his reporting easier and more robust.

“Because our previous system was set up for our parent group in the nominal ledger the balance sheet might have had 2,000 different potential lines whereas we’ve simplified that down to let’s say 200 different lines that we might use. So now, for things like travel costs, instead of having 20 lines with costs spread across, I can actually see things more clearly… having a system fit to us, rather than us having to fit in with a bigger system, has been one of the major benefits.”

Easy to use for all

Adoption of the new system was simple and straightforward for Albumedix, thanks to the software’s intuitive, easy-to-use interface and the work Access did with the company during implementation to ensure the system suited their needs and processes.

Accessing the system through Access Workspace using a single sign-on and having everything integrated and available in one place meant that buy-in and satisfaction from employees was high from the outset.

“A month in from the go-live I did a quick ask round as to see how people were feeling. Everyone was already saying ‘This is far easier than the last system’ and they could see that it was going to be significantly better…And to have people being positive about it within a month of a big change like this just says that it went very well.”

The simplicity of the user experience has also had a positive impact on staff who are only required to use the system on an ad-hoc basis.

“For the person who’s getting a few different invoices they now get one email a day. They can just go into Workspace and if they’ve got 5 invoices to approve, they’re all there and they can do it in one view. Whereas under our previous system, they’d have had 5 separate emails which they’d have needed to reply to and deal with individually.”

To ensure a smooth transition following the go-live users at Albumedix were also given training through the implementation process, meaning that as soon as the system was up and running, all the employees could quickly use the system with confidence.

“The training was done at an appropriate time and at an appropriate level so that when we did go live people could start working with it very quickly.”

Overall, by choosing an Access Financial Management Suite, Albumedix gained a solution that they could implement quickly, that was easy for staff to pick up and use and that has streamlined their processes, saving them time and giving them the freedom to do more.