Case Studies

Fund of Hedge Funds

This rapidly growing Fund of Hedge Funds quoted on the FTSE 250, needed a new system to monitor hedge fund investments to replace a working but large and vulnerable Excel based system. It also needed a new accounting system for its operations in London and Guernsey.

We built the hedge fund monitoring system using standard SunAccounts and Vision Q&A functionality. This was achieved within budget at a fraction of the cost of dedicated industry specific software. The process now takes hours instead of days and is much more secure and offers flexible reporting. The accounting systems were implemented together with automated consolidation with zero additional software cost.

Recruitment Group

Although this client had SunAccounts, they used few of its facilities and performed much of their accounting and reporting using Excel. Training was minimal and expectations were low. Re-keying was rife and month end problems were significant. All costs were allocated to individual consultants using complex, undocumented and fragile Excel sheets. Minimal housekeeping or security had been implemented, resulting in a very slow system.

We created a new database, adjusted the chart of accounts and created much-improved journals. We implemented the user verification module to work with the new journals and with the corporate allocations module. Vision was implemented for financial reporting and for journal importing. We designed the Vision reports and provided Vision training. Vision was implemented on each director's PC for direct access to the SunAccounts data.

We created simpler creditor and debtor codes to enable a future interface with the recruitment billing system. We created the interface from the Sage payroll system and investigated using Crystal Reports to extract information from Tempaid, a temps system.

We extracted the old debtor and creditor outstanding transactions, converted the codes using “old to new lookup” in Excel and imported them into the new database.

We implemented the corporate allocations module to perform the complex multi-level allocations of costs from support staff via support departments down to individual recruitment consultants.

Suppliers were now paid by computerised cheque, which we designed, and the manual cash book and multitude of Excel sheets were eliminated.

The Finance Department now operates efficiently with accurate accounts now produced with time for review. The staff are better trained, the system is quicker and the allocations are reliable and fully documented.

A Training & Enterprise Council

This client used SunAccounts to a minimal extent. The sales ledger was maintained on Pegasus and purchase order systems were manual and “voluntary”.

We converted the sales ledger to SunAccounts and trained the staff. We implemented the purchase order processing module and instituted the controlling manual procedures. We made various improvements to the system including an interface to the “Provider Invoice Approval System”. Vision was implemented for reporting and old transactions were cleared down to speed up processing.

Trade Association

This client struggled with a badly implemented Sage system on Unix. Training was minimal and efficiency low. Many manual books were maintained, duplicating the information in the accounting system.

We implemented SunAccounts to deal with their unusual reporting requirements. The business rules module was configured to speed up data input and help validate the VAT and departmental reporting. Vision was implemented for reporting and journal import.

We implemented the sales invoicing module and implemented an ODBC link from SunAccounts to an external program. We co-ordinated with their major supplier so that their regular 500 line invoice could be imported into SunAccounts using Vision.

We extracted the information from their old system including prior year comparisons. This was imported using Vision and validated by business rules. With the implementation of the purchase invoice register to assist with the invoice approval process, the final manual book was eliminated.

Communications Group

This public company, with its head office in New York, used various accounting systems in its many international offices. Consolidation was achieved historically by re-keying faxed information into multiple linked Excel sheets. Staff had received little training and morale was low. Inter-company reconciliations, currency revaluation and consolidation were major obstacles to efficient financial reporting.

In consultation with the Financial Controller, we completely redesigned the core chart of accounts. We created the analysis codes and system settings. Reports were written in the SunAccounts report writers and Vision. Consolidation was achieved using SunAccounts data and Vision with no re-keying. The inter-company reconciliation, which used to take a week, was now automatic.

We built the interface between SunAccounts and their proprietary communication billing systems, reducing substantially the billing cycle.

After successfully testing the system in London, we rolled the implementation out to the world-wide offices. We converted the data from their local systems, which sometimes included oriental or European programs and characters. We imported their budgets using Vision and adjusted the system to take account of local requirements, particularly in banking and reporting. We configured the BACS interface or computerised cheques to pay creditors.

We provided the SunAccounts and Vision training to both the systems managers and the users – sometimes through a translator. We also amended our client specific manuals to suit local needs and terminology.

Implementing under pressure, often with little local technical support, in countries with different cultures, varying English skills and staff shortages required all of our consultant's patience and understanding.