With the management of a production base of 2500 acres and over 120 permanent staff, A.S. Wilcox & Sons found they needed new business software to assist their business growth. The group had been using the legacy product CBA financial system from Greentree (who were recently recognised as one of 25 global rising stars by MIS magazine) for a number of years - and were satisfied with it - but found there was a growing need for more advanced functions.

Company accountant Eric Gillott explains, "We needed to speed up our processes and have a more manageable General Ledger," he says, "that suited our in-house processes. CBA did what was required, but gradually we needed more from a system."

The integration equation

According to Gillott, a key driver for change was the need for a system with Microsoft functionality, rather than DOS based. "We needed an easier to use system for our new and more Microsoft friendly users," he says, "and a system that allowed integration with Microsoft products."

A.S. Wilcox looked at a couple of competing software products, but ultimately decided Greentree provided the General Ledger and reporting functions they needed - and had similar functionality to CBA.

A real time saving has been the use of 'trees'; one of Greentree's most powerful features. A.S. Wilcox now have the ability to define an unlimited number of trees against all master files and have used trees to classify and summarise data within the General Ledger.  They also use the trees at report time for sorting and sub-totalling at all levels, and have been able to tailor reports easily to provide end of month data within Excel.

"Using trees attached to the General Ledger saves vast amounts of time," says Gillott, "especially at month end, as it provides a logical multi-level view of our company. Month end processing used to take a day and a half but now it only takes an hour to complete and that's a massive saving."

Transparency crucial

Managing 2500 acres production base, the ability to see quantities in the General Ledger has been a real business benefit for A.S. Wilcox - something they previously could not do. "We process large volumes and the ability to be able to see this in the General Ledger is critical to our business," says Gillott.

The 'allocations' sub module to distribute revenue or expenses across business units, departments and cost-centres has been a valuable tool for the company.  Transactions that are posted to an allocation account are automatically reallocated over the specified accounts. "Being able to apply allocations within the General Ledger has been easy to do and extremely useful," Gillott says.

A.S. Wilcox believe Greentree, being a completely on-line, integrated system, has made a real impact in terms of time savings and more informed decisions.  "Greentree is very responsive," says Gillott, "and the real time processing really aids the decision making process and reporting." Greentree provides a single point of data entry with updates all relevant areas instantaneously, with no inter-module posting or updating required.

"With no more batch delays and no updates to wait for," says Gillott, "we are more proactive and have the real information at our fingertips. As financial transactions are entered into any part of Greentree, they are reflected immediately in the General Ledger, this allows us to see exactly what revenue or costs we have in the system at any time."

By using Greentree, A.S. Wilcox has been able to relieve historically pressurised periods and all reconciliation concerns. "Reconciling in Greentree has really softened the pressure of month-end and year-end processing," says Gillott.  "Moving to the next accounting period is a simple matter of changing the current period. This process has helped to spread the load."

All transactions entered into Greentree are date stamped with the relevant period and year, so there's no formal period-end aging that needs to be performed. Being able to integrate with Microsoft Excel gives A.S. Wilcox control and the flexibility to present data to suit the business demands. Gillott believes the Greentree Report Writer is - and will continue to be - indispensable.

"The reporting in Greentree has really helped the business provide timely and in-depth information," he says. "There's so much potential to use reports throughout the business and we're just starting to realise the benefits of having accurate information on-line."

To the future

Commenting on the future usages of Greentree, Gillott feels the new system can offer more functionality and keep pace with A.S. Wilcox's growth. "It's early days yet," he says, "but as we get to know the software we've been pleased with the implementation and feel that Greentree offers much untapped potential for our business."

For more information

www.greentree.com/customers/profiles/as_wilcox.cfm

Graham Hill
(09) 366 3897
graham.hill@greentree.com
www.greentree.com

June 2003

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