Cloud accounting software for financial services companies

AES International uses AccountsIQ to help manage growth

AES International is a UK-registered financial advisory company with a branch in Dubai which pioneered the use of emerging evidence-based technologies to provide better advice to clients. AES has seen rapid growth over the last decade and in 2012, they were the 4th fastest growing financial services firm in the UK.

Having built success on their ground-breaking use of technology, AES was aware that such an approach would also benefit their internal processes. When Wayne Copeland joined AES as Head of Finance in 2017, he knew immediately that there were big efficiencies to be made in the company’s accounting practices. At the time, the company had been using Quickbooks, a starter accounting package that couldn’t handle AES’s rapid growth and multi-national accounting requirements. It was clear that the company had outgrown this system and required an alternative solution that could handle their reporting and consolidation requirements more easily.

AES selected AccountsIQ as it could easily consolidate their multiple entities, multiple bank accounts and myriad of currency transactions, and because it is easy to produce bespoke management reporting packs.

Nothing else like AccountsIQ for consolidation

Wayne Copeland, Head of Finance, AES International

Consolidation was crucial for AES International, which has multiple entities and currencies to manage. Quickbooks only allowed consolidation in sterling, requiring the cumbersome use of spreadsheets and manual effort to consolidate the accounts. AccountsIQ does this automatically. Wayne’s team can easily run a consolidation of six companies and convert the data to any currency they need.

I don’t know of any other system that can do consolidation the way AccountsIQ can. It takes a lot of complexity out of everything and that saves us a lot of time. It used to take two weeks to do our accounts; with AccountsIQ and other improvements, we now get our accounts out in five working days,” says Wayne.

Quantifiable Management Information (MI) for more efficient decision-making

While AccountsIQ’s consolidation features take away the legwork, its bespoke reporting tools make it easier for AES’s management team to interpret and action the results. AES has built on AccountsIQ’s standard reports by using API connectors to create custom reports to suit their specific needs.

With AccountsIQ we get good, accurate data coming out of a well trusted system. We are confident we have chosen the right system for our current and future growth needs.”

A digital approach that saves time and money

The move to AccountsIQ marks a change to a totally digital approach to accounting that ultimately saves AES both time and money.

When I joined AES, I took the opportunity to make accounting cloud-based. Quickbooks was server-based – we once lost a week’s worth of work when the system went down. I knew that the new system had to be cloud-based, backed up, everything stored online.”

With AccountsIQ, AES now has a cloud-based solution that makes data loss a non-issue.

In addition to its consolidation capabilities, AccountsIQ has other features that offer substantial time savings for AES. For example, the Fixed Asset Register’s auto-depreciation feature helps automate processes that would otherwise be done manually. “The fixed asset register is a great addition,” says Wayne.

“For SMEs, it’s a perfect bit of software.”

Cloud-based, with financial consolidation software a key feature, AccountsIQ provides exceptional value for AES, saving valuable time for this growing business. “For SME’s, AccountsIQ is a perfect bit of software,” says Wayne.

AccountsIQ is ideal for our complex accounting requirements. We were delighted to find a solution that is intuitive to use and enables us to report on our group structure easily, all at an affordable price.”

IFX Payments use AccountsIQ to manage complex multi-entity, multi-currency accounting and support their growth needs

IFX provides global cross-border payments solutions to SMEs and payments services providers. Their finance team of six people use AccountsIQ to manage the complex accounting needs of their four entities (in Dubai, Australia, UK and Poland). They also operate in three different base currencies (£, AUS$ and PLNzl).

IFX Group Finance Director, Steve Allen.

“We were using Sage 50,” says IFX Group Finance Director, Steve Allen. “But it wasn’t Cloud-based. Even before the pandemic, our finance team was split across three office locations, so we needed a system where we could work together seamlessly.”

Steve also wanted a more flexible finance system.

“With AccountsIQ, if I see something’s wrong in the P&L, I can drill down to the transaction level (even to view an actual invoice) and change it there and then,” he says. “That makes my life so much easier.”

IFX were also keen to ensure they had effective PO workflows in place. The company was growing at a phenomenal rate. Maintaining visibility and keeping control of costs across the business were key priorities for the finance team.

“The year before last we experienced 110% growth,” Steve explains. “We could not have done that without AccountsIQ. If we were still on Sage 50, we would have collapsed or at the very least we would have needed a much bigger finance team.”

Management reporting for multiple stakeholders

The IFX finance team also needs to meet the demand for management reports from across the business, and from their external stakeholders.

“Different users require different information,” explains Steve. “But AccountsIQ has multi-dimensional reporting and analysis capabilities. That enables us to flip the data for different stakeholders using just one set of coding structures.”

That means IFX can produce the compliance data demanded by banks and the FCA quickly and easily. But they can also deliver granular, timely and accurate commercial reports for their own board.

“We can report by department, cost type and even by individual salesperson,” says Steve. “With AccountsIQ we can track the performance and contribution of every IFX salesperson. We treat them like another profit centre for reporting purposes.”

Easy for new team members to use

IFX have found that new team members can train themselves to use AccountsIQ simply by using the learning resources in AIQ Academy.

“One of the things I always rave about with AccountsIQ is the user experience,” says Steve. “It’s so easy to use; it’s fantastic.”

A finance system to support growth

“With AccountsIQ, we really feel like we’re on the right platform to support our future growth,” concludes Steve. “We can integrate other tech with it as and when we need to. For example, right now we’ve decided to use AutoEntry; that integrates seamlessly with AccountsIQ.”“Starter systems like Sage and Xero don’t really meet the needs of a complex business. AccountsIQ is a proper accounting package. It’s Cloud-based, user-friendly and meets all the accounting needs of an international business like IFX.”

Find out more about our SaaS Accounting Software for high-growth tech companies.

About IFX

Founded in 2005, IFX Payments has grown to become a leading global foreign exchange, payment and financial technology provider. Headquartered in London, with offices around the world, we’re positioned to be a significant participant in the new banking paradigm delivering advanced payment, treasury and financial management solutions. We replace operational inefficiency with streamlined processes and replace uncertainty with control.

Salamanca Group Chooses AccountsIQ over NetSuite for Consolidation and Reporting

Privately-held merchant banking business Salamanca Group comprises approximately 80 businesses. Formerly using Sage Line 50, the group’s Finance Director Lee Camp and his team would spend weeks each month producing consolidated accounts and management reporting packs using a complex process run from spreadsheets.

Today, using AccountsIQ, Lee spends no more than five minutes a month creating reports:

Our decision to move away from Sage Line 50 was driven by inefficiencies which Sage couldn’t address; it took two people in my team one week each to update various schedules in Excel and then I would spend many hours compiling a reporting pack. AccountsIQ allows me to produce a custom reporting pack in just minutes.”

Lee Camp, Finance Director, Salamanca Group

The Selection Process: AccountsIQ vs. NetSuite

Knowing they had outgrown Sage, Lee began the search for a replacement Cloud-based application. With quite complex accounting requirements, Lee initially looked at NetSuite, Oracle’s enterprise Cloud solution.

While NetSuite looked like it could answer some of our needs, we really couldn’t justify the cost and it still couldn’t provide the kind of customisable reporting pack we needed.  Our two main requirements, consolidation and custom reporting, were both weak in NetSuite.”

Advised to look at AccountsIQ by a friend, Lee realised that complex accounting needn’t come at such a high price.  Not only could AccountsIQ make day-to-day processes more efficient through automation, it could also solve their reporting and consolidation issues better than NetSuite.

We were genuinely shocked to see that AccountsIQ solved more of our reporting problems than NetSuite.  It also comes at a fraction of NetSuite’s cost.”

Consolidating Over 80 Sets of Accounts in one Click

Merchant banking group Salamanca manages over 80 sets of accounts.  The group’s consolidation needs are complex and management reports need to be precise and timely.  AccountsIQ developed a custom reporting pack for the finance team which links to live data and therefore provides continuous consolidation.

AccountsIQ produces a consolidated balance sheet as well as departmental P&Ls at the touch of a button.  We have a bespoke management reporting pack that works in real time in the system. As far as we could see, NetSuite couldn’t do that for us.”

Making Complex Reporting Simple

Salamanca’s finance team already knew exactly how the monthly management reports should look and what data needed to be included for analysis.  This meant that Lee Camp and his team were well-prepared to implement a new system in a very short time, with much of the configuration already documented.  All they had to do was find a system which could extract the data that they needed.

Many of the products we looked at had quite sophisticated-looking charts and graphs.  Almost all had customisable dashboards of some kind but AccountsIQ was the only Cloud accounting application we saw that could actually extract the data that we wanted to see and present it in a meaningful way.  It really is reporting made simple.”

Future Plans to Find More Efficiencies

Already enjoying the benefits of automated processes around purchase order approval as well as automated consolidation and reporting, Salamanca intends to explore further opportunities to improve working processes using AccountsIQ.  Future projects include implementing an expense module which will automate the process of managing and reporting expenses as well as integrating payroll.

AccountsIQ’s main success for us has been the efficiency it has brought to the business.  The product is a good fit for our pretty complex accounting requirements and AccountsIQ gives us real value for money.  We are looking forward to finding even more ways to use the system to improve the way in which we work.

I’ve spent 20 years in finance and AccountsIQ is by far the best solution I’ve come across. Hands down beats the major players and has more functionality at a cost effective price. Wish I found this years ago.”