Codeway
Codeway is a UK-based identification, labelling and tracking solutions provider, serving production, distribution and service industries. The business was founded in 1983 to complete the development of a barcode printer and market it alongside barcode scanners sourced from America and Japan and has since evolved into a specialist in identification, labelling and tracking. Codeway operates at the heart of the supply chain, where accurate barcoding and stock management are mission-critical for every business, from suppliers through to retailers and consumers. "Everything comes in brown packets these days, they all look the same. The barcode, or increasingly an RFID tag, is the only way to tell one package from another."
The Challenge
Codeway's previous finance system, Access Dimensions, had evolved into a platform built for organisations much larger than Codeway. Over time it became too costly and too complex for what the business actually needed.
"Access Dimensions had evolved into a system built for companies much bigger than us, it just became too costly and too complex for what we actually needed."
Matters came to a head when the provider moved its system to the cloud and, at the same time, sharply increased its price.
"The final straw was Access moving to the cloud and doubling an already expensive price. It was completely prohibitive, so we rejected their offer, which gave us just a month to move to a new system."
That left Codeway with just one month to select, implement and roll out a replacement, without disrupting operations or compromising the accuracy their customers depend on.
"The main challenge in switching from Access to AccountsIQ in a month was transferring the data and training staff on the new processes."
The Solution
Codeway ran a survey of the systems available on the market before choosing AccountsIQ.
"We surveyed the systems on the market, and AccountsIQ came out most promising for user and customer friendliness."
With only a month on the clock, onboarding quality mattered as much as the software itself and Codeway singles this out as a high point of the switch.
"The onboarding was excellent. Our project manager knew the system inside out, helped us decide what to do, imported the data, and the training materials were great, we got everyone up to speed and live on time."
From day one, Codeway put AccountsIQ to work across the whole business, not just finance, sales, admin, product management and stock management all run through the same platform, alongside the core financial functions, with sales reporting now produced on a weekly basis.
"From the start we've used AccountsIQ for sales, admin, product management, stock management and finance and now weekly sales reporting runs through it too."
That breadth is exactly what Codeway needed: a system flexible enough for finance and non-finance users alike, without forcing extra process on either side.
"AccountsIQ's adaptability meant it could meet the needs of both our business and finance users, while streamlining our processes at the same time."
The Results
The most significant change has been the disappearance of the manual handover between sales and finance, previously a paper-based step that introduced both delay and risk of error.
"The biggest improvement has been eliminating handovers. Sales admin used to write requirements out on paper and hand them to accounts to enter , that had real implications for both accuracy and efficiency."
AccountsIQ has also underpinned Codeway's move to more flexible working, a shift the business made in response to COVID.
"AccountsIQ made it much easier to support home working after COVID, everyone can access what they need and enter order and transaction data themselves."
Perhaps the biggest change, though, is cultural. Codeway's sales, production and finance functions now operate as one integrated team, rather than as separate departments working against each other.
Key outcomes
- Manual, paper-based handovers between sales and finance eliminated
- Improved accuracy and efficiency in day-to-day processing
- Weekly sales reporting embedded across the business
- Flexible, cloud-based working supported for all staff
- Sales, production and finance now operating as one integrated team
Looking beyond the immediate switch, Ian’s focus is already focused on what more automation could do for the day-to-day and it’s a note that lands candid rather than oversold.
"Over the next few years, I'd really like to see AI take a lot of the manual effort out of processing transactions."
"We work much better now as an integrated team, instead of sales and production on one side and a separate finance function that was basically our sales prevention department. That's gone."
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