Many organizations working within an Apple environment still falsely believe that their finance departments must run on PC-based software. There is still a lack of awareness surrounding the options available for accounting and finance using Apple Mac networks. However, the head office of the international firm, Impact Leadership Development Group, has turned to Standard ERP for assistance with this fundamental issue in order to standardize all of its business activities on the Mac platform.
Impact, a firm designing and delivering development programs for some of the world's leading organizations, has invested approximately £10,000 with software reseller, Mac Accessory Centre, to implement and support Standard ERP - a suite of fully integrated financials, job costing and business management software from HansaWorld. Operating on an Apple Mac platform, the software will provide a flexible, scaleable financial management infrastructure that will support the organization's continued expansion.
"As there were so few financial solutions available on the Mac platform, we did consider installing PC systems to make our selection process easier, though such a change posed huge cost implications. However, HansaWorld presented us with the only viable alternative that complied with our preference to continue operating on a Mac network, at an extremely competitive price."
Caroline Airey | Finance Manager
The job costing functionality within Standard ERP will be employed by Impact to provide detailed records for expenses and additional costs relating to particular jobs. This will enable comprehensive reporting facilities and improve overall project management.
"HansaWorld was one of the few vendors on the market that could offer a fully integrated product that managed job costing, invoicing and payment procedures, all within a Mac environment. It will enable us to move away from paper-based tasks and manual processes and will improve the accuracy and timeliness of the information we produce."
Additionally, the flexibility in Standard ERP supports Impact's two-fold invoicing process. Clients are billed for training fees in advance and then billed separately, after the training program, for any additional costs incurred. Impact processes around 300 purchase invoices and 100 sales invoices each month.
Airey says, "Due to the nature of our invoicing procedures, and the continued growth of our business, we found it increasingly difficult to track the additional expenses for each training course. Much of this information was stored manually and the volume of data became too great to manage. Now we have easily identifiable pre-payments and accruals at the end of each month, and the invoicing process from start to finish is far less time consuming. The multi-currency capability of [Standard ERP] will also be extremely useful when invoicing our overseas clients and the Group's international offices."
Airey concludes, "The level of support we have received from both Mac Accessory Centre as our reseller partner and from HansaWorld directly has been excellent. The fact that both parties have been accessible and responsive throughout the implementation process has ensured that the change over between systems has been a far quicker and smoother process than anticipated."
Impact Leadership Development Group is also currently evaluating the hotel and restaurant module for future use in organising reservations and event billing at its three country house hotels. This module was originally launched with version 3.9 of Standard ERP and would allow Impact to effectively manage their staff, guests and stock at training events while providing full integration with the back office.