Keratec is a New Zealand biotechnology company, based at Lincoln’s Agriculture & Science Centre.

It creates new materials from natural sources using advanced and innovative technologies.

The company has captured the unique characteristics of keratin, a natural protein obtained from wool, to create a range of exciting new personal care ingredients, medical materials and other biopolymer products. 

Keratec, along with US-based partner Keraplast Technologies, holds a dominant global IP position on the use of keratin and associated technologies in a wide variety of applications.

The business situation
As Keratec grew markets in new industries, new divisions were created but increasingly, spreadsheets were being used to plug the gaps in the functionality and reporting capability of MYOB, the company’s accounting solution.

Rachel Robinson, financial controller at Keratec says, “with several research projects being undertaken by multiple divisions within the company, we needed more sophisticated job costing capability and comprehensive divisional reporting which just wasn’t possible in MYOB.”

Fixed Assets was another area where the business needed more sophisticated management capability.

Upon the recommendation of Keratec’s auditors, Robinson evaluated several possible solutions before eventually choosing Greentree, which was available through the local Greentree partner.

Why Greentree?
Reasons for choosing Greentree included the fact that additional modules could be added to match Keratec’s growth requirements.

Another advantage from Keratec’s perspective was that Greentree has strong capability in divisional reporting, job costing and asset management.

Excel integration ensured historical data in exiting spreadsheets could be readily accessed.

The company’s research division handles multiple research projects with multiple sub-projects so job costing is a core business activity.

Job Costing integrates with Invoicing to ensure the costs associated with collaborative projects are correctly allocated.

Management are now confident that all project costs are automatically captured and updated and as a result, financial information can be relied upon for accurate decision making.

Excel integration, easy reporting
Robinson explains that early on in its development Keratec undertook a lot of research but as the company has matured it has evolved into several divisions each undertaking its own operations.

Excel integration combines with Greentree’s strong reporting capability to present divisional costs in an accurate and understandable report format.

Reporting is of strategic significance for management and the ability to use Excel is a key point of difference in Greentree.

There is no longer any double-handling of foreign currency invoicing since Greentree automatically produces the invoice, then updates the relevant financial accounts.

Robinson says this process alone has dropped many hours off her administration time since she no longer needs to manually produce and convert invoices.

Robinson says the Greentree partner “always answer their own phone and always respond to phone messages” which is refreshing.

She says they sought to fully understand the business from the beginning and assumed a long-term view, which has been backed up by excellent post-implementation support.

Lower cost of ownership
Robinson recalls a previous implementation of a product positioned similarly to Greentree but at twice the price.

She was pleasantly surprised by Greentree’s lower implementation and ownership costs which were “a bit of a revelation.”

She says, “I was initially surprised that Greentree wasn’t a more expensive system since it did some things that the more expensive systems had trouble with.”

Keretec’s divisional growth and subsequent need to separate operational costs has been accommodated by Greentree’s strong reporting capability.

The integration of key Greentree modules ensures that costs are accurately calculated and split between the parties to collaborative projects.

Leveraging Excel integration to produce reports from existing spreadsheets plus the automatic production of foreign currency invoicing means Robinson now spends productive time on more strategic tasks.

She confidently states that, if she was going through the evaluation process again, her conclusion would be the same, Greentree, and she’s backing her enthusiasm by recommending it to others outside Keratec.

For more information

Greentree
Graham Hill, Channel Manager
Email: graham.hill@greentree.com
Ph: 09 366 3888
Fax: 09 366 3889
Web: www.greentree.com

8/11/20_ex

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