New Interview with Paul

How important is having a good accounting platform for your business?

For Paul Goodman it was critical.

Earlier this year, he was appointed Finance Lead for Narrative Entertainment UK, a major new company in the broadcast industry.

He was tasked with finding an outsourced finance department that could help them implement excellent financial systems and deliver top-rate financial insight, right from the start.

Paul interviewed a handful of outsourced solutions. He was looking for “good communications, good financial knowledge, cost-effectiveness and flexibility. Insight were great on all of these,” he told me recently.

And one other key factor?

“Each outsourced function came with their own proposed software. I liked the look and sound of iplicit” – that’s the world-class accounting platform we’ve recently implemented for all our clients.

“It was definitely a selling point to go with Insight.”

Although Narrative only started trading in May, it has a team of 40 employees, so it’s already a sizeable business.

“It was important that the accounting software could handle that,” says Paul. “We needed something that could handle multi-currency and multi-company. It was suggested to me that maybe Xero would be enough – I knew it wasn’t.

“We needed something more robust and iplicit actually turned out to be more cost-effective.”

“We’ve now been working together for several months, and iplicit hasn’t disappointed.

“The non-financial people who need to use it (for example to raise purchase orders) find it user-friendly and modern,” Paul says – as does he.

And he likes the fact that we work very closely with the people who developed iplicit. So if there is any additional functionality he wants, he can simply ask for it – and we can often get adjustments!

This is a major advantage you would never get with other systems or outsourced finance departments.

Most importantly, Paul adds, he gets the financial information he needs to make good financial decisions for the new company quickly and easily.

This is the ultimate test for any platform. When you are able to handle your day-to-day transactions smoothly and easily, it feels like you’re getting more control over your business.

But a world-class platform can help you understand what’s going on in your business better. You get deep insights into how your business is performing, so you can optimise your operations and plan ahead. That’s when you gain true control.

“But that goes hand-in-hand with the people using iplicit,” Paul emphasises. “Insight is very knowledgeable about this system and get everything they can out of it.

“Whatever insights I need, I have people at Insight who deliver it efficiently, speedily and in a friendly manner.”

Ultimately, he’s been very pleasantly surprised by the experience of outsourcing the finance function.

“I hadn’t had a great outsourced experience previously,” he confessed to me recently. “Often an outsourced finance company will want to do things their way and you have to wrestle with them over how they’re going to do things, putting up with their way or getting into lots of arguments.”

“That was not the case here.

“To have your reliability and knowledge on tap has been great. You give me really solid, timely support with finance and that allows me to give the help I really want to the rest of the business, and do my job really well.”

If you, too, would like to find out how we can help you manage your finances to world-class standards…

Using world-class software…

And providing you with world-class insights and help making great financial decisions…

Then please hit ‘reply’ to this email or call us today on 01279 647 447.

Your company doesn’t have to have as big a team as Narrative.

But you do need to be turning over at least £1-2 million… to be ambitious about your growth… and to be committed to building a company that’s managed seriously and professionally – to world-class standards.

If that’s you, get in touch with me today and let’s talk.

Garry

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The company owner took responsibility for building an accounting function which they understood very little about.

They had no idea what an efficient, successful finance department that helps propel a company forward looks like.

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