Moore Kingston Smith transforms finance processes of multi-company estate agency

Moore Kingston Smith has overhauled the entire finance process of multi-company estate agency group Richard James. The firm replaced the client’s outdated desktop software with a state-of-the-art online system that is fast, efficient and future-proof.

Client

Richard James is an expanding estate agency, with multiple offices, some 15 separate legal entities, lettings offices and a sales business.

Scenario

The finance manager and the founder were both keen to find a more modern system. They wanted one that would not only speed up the company’s work but also keep up with its ambitious growth plans and future-proof the business.

The software advisory team at Moore Kingston Smith spent time understanding in detail how the estate agency group operated and how it managed its finance functions across all its companies. The team found the client’s main challenges to be:

• Numerous intercompany transactions, with one company paying invoices then recharging to the others.
• Multiple spending approvals to handle.
• Consolidation – a big part of the work – being done in spreadsheets.
• Finance reports taking a week to produce for many stakeholders.
• Manual invoice processing, requiring manual adjustments to the journal once a month.

The team presented several options to the client who, after consideration, decided on iplicit. Crucial factors were the speed of intra-group company reconciliations and the efficiencies of consolidation by applying both sides of transactions correctly. As well as improving all-round efficiency, it would support the client’s ambitious growth strategy. Additionally, finance reports could be on the decision-makers’ desks at the click of a button.

The implementation

Over four months, the system was designed, configured and tested. The team trained all Richard James’ finance staff thoroughly, enabling the client to deploy iplicit on schedule. The implementation worked smoothly, even going live half-way through the financial year, and the client saw a big difference immediately.

Advantages of using iplicit

• The intercompany transactions show up in the accounts of the right legal entities as an expense straight away, so the P&L is live and accurate.
• All the data from the different legal entities is in one system, without the need to log in and out of different accounts.
• The automated bank reconciliation simply requires the user to review the matches it suggests.
• Managing cash flow is easier, as aged debtors and aged creditors across all entities can be viewed in one place.
• Automated invoicing for prepayments enables the client to spread the amount over any specified period.
• The time-saving functionality of optical character recognition captures receipts and integrates with bank feeds.
• The real-time management data enables Moore Kingston Smith as advisers to proactively advise the client, as they no longer need to request downloaded data.

Testimonial

“The training with Moore Kingston Smith was very helpful and the team was available whenever we needed them. When it comes to reporting with iplicit, all the information is there, live, at the click of a button. You can see a complete picture of the business. There’s some really impressive functionality in iplicit and our finance team now focuses on higher-level work.”

Jonathan O’Sullivan
Accounts Assistant, Richard James estate agency

How Moore Kingston Smith can help

Contact our software advisory team to discover how we can help transform your finance processes.