"Our previous system was purchased by ITF in 1998 about a year before I joined the company. I found it difficult to work with because its drill-down facility was lack lustre and the system's general reporting capabilities were inflexible. It would take a great deal of time to take information from the system and download it into Excel," John Garnham, ITF Financial Director, explains.
"I therefore decided to look for a new and faster system which suited ITF's particular needs. I wanted to cut down the time taken with everyday functions such as sourcing information and accessing reports, to focus on what we should be doing - looking at cash flow trends for example. I wanted a solution that was really Windows based and then looked at the additional merits of the system on the back of that."
Garnham shopped around to find a solution to best suit ITF's requirements and after much deliberation, narrowed down a short list of eight companies to three, including PS Financials. But PS Financials stood out from the crowd for two reasons, according to Garnham. Firstly in terms of functionality the PS Financials software boasted an advanced drill-down function, the ability to view multiple data sources simultaneously, a unified ledger system and a simplified reporting structure. Secondly, PS Financials sales staff were approachable, professional, extremely thorough and able to customise the system to meet ITF's requirements.
Implementing PS Financials
"They [PS Financials sales staff] spoke to every individual in the department to determine what they required from the system," says Garnham. "They listened to us instead of us having to suffer a sales pitch - a refreshing change. We asked questions and they came back to us with the answers. We gave PS Financials
a detailed spec and they created a solution which met this spec."
Garnham also praises what he describes as PS Financials' "professional approach" to implementing the system. "They literally started from scratch with a blank canvas, but once the screens were set up and we knew how they operated, using the system was very easy," he says.
"The review of requirements and procedures during the implementation was not a weakness, it was a strength, because we were able to simplify and re-engineer our processes and the system meets our requirements and is very easy to navigate."
The Return on Investment from PS Financials
Garnham believes the £54,000 ITF invested in the PS Financials system is money well spent. "Usually it takes at least four or five years for a company to achieve full payback on a capital investment, but just one-and-a-half years after implementing PS Financials, we are close to achieving a full return on the investment," he reveals.
"In retrospect, I wish I had ditched the previous accounting software sooner and implemented PS Financials because payback on investment would have been achieved much sooner."
The PS Financials system has saved ITF's accounts department 14 days of labour per month, equating to 176.5 days per annum, therefore improving time efficiencies by 50 per cent, estimates Garnham. The monetary value per annum of these calculated cost savings is £21,668.
Time saving is primarily achieved through PS Financials' simplicity and speed of operation and advanced drill-down capabilities, he says. As PS Financials is a modern Unified Ledger system there are no modular boundaries and this provides seamless drill-down and unlimited views of data.
"Before we implemented PS Financials, we spent a large amount of time looking for information and documents because the old system did not have the capability to access accounts information seamlessly and easily," says Garnham.
"We now have the ability to pull information from the system - immediately. We can therefore answer queries [posed by ITF employees] within seconds by accessing the relevant information on screen instead of referring to hard copies of source documents. Before installing PS Financials we would stock up requests for information, which sometimes, would not be answered until the next day."
Benefits from using PS Financials
"Now we can produce management accounts in minutes, previously it would take a day. Inputting transactions takes one third of the time and it is easy to transfer information into Excel, Word or email."
He also says pay runs are quick and easy to action and that answering suppliers' pay run questions is simpler because all the information they require is available on screen. However, one of the biggest plus points for Garnham is that conducting a year-end is no longer a time consuming process.
"Staff are still able to carry out other accountancy functions while the year-end is being processed, because the system allows us to bring up several [time] periods on screen simultaneously," Garnham explains. "Before [we implemented PS Financials], year-end would take one month to complete and all other accounts functions would be put on hold. Because of the time saved, there is no need for staff to work on the weekend during year-end. This also saves money in that we don't have to pay them overtime."
Garnham continues: "We have also moved away from batch control because with the User defined input screens from PS automatically."
The Future with PS Financials
But Garnham believes the full benefits of installing PS Financials will be realised once the system has been up and running for two more years. "After the three year mark we will have all the history we require to make projections - that's when the real benefits will be apparent," he says.
"But in the meantime, because PS Financials is so efficient and in turn, has improved our efficiencies, the time we have saved has allowed us to take on additional work and we are also providing a much better service to the rest of our organisation." | 
