Cloud accounting software for technology companies

Continuum Commerce Adopts AccountsIQ's Cloud Accounting Software for Real Time Management Information

Continuum Commerce CEO, Eamonn O’Shea, states,

I would have no hesitation in recommending AccountsIQ to anyone that conducts business in multiple locations. It can significantly simplify your management reporting process, while at the same time significantly improving its output. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) pricing means we have a full accounting and business analysis system for a fraction of what I would have expected to pay to implement an on-premise solution.

The Challenge

Continuum Commerce was founded in 2000 (formerly known as GCX – Global Currency Exchange) as an independent online payments solution provider.  Based in Ireland, Continuum also has operations in mainland Europe, the UK and the Asia-pacific region and has a management team that spends much of its time abroad. Remote board meetings and management updates were previously handled by sending spreadsheets created by re-keying information from their previous accounting package to participants by fax or e-mail. This information was therefore often out of date before the meeting had begun and decisions were being made based on inaccurate information.

Gerard O’Brien, the CFO of Continuum Commerce says,

We evaluated many alternatives and found AccountsIQ offered the most compelling solution. While it provided all the functionality we needed and is available over the web at any time, its reporting capability and especially its Digital Dashboard has proven to be the ‘killer app’ for GCX. There is a wealth of standard reports, and I was able to customise a couple of key reports that I use on a daily basis. The senior team can log on at any time to review our performance metrics. It has really streamlined our business planning and measurement.

The Solution

Continuum Commerce adopted AccountsIQ for all its financial requirements consisting of:

• AccountsIQ online accounting platform
• Full multi-currency processing throughout
• Integration with Continuum’s billing engine
• Customised management information dashboards with specific KPIs

Results

Gerard O’Brien told us that benefits to Continuum include that AccountsIQ represents incredible value for money with no upfront capital cost. They find that reporting is a key strength – with them rarely needing to export to Excel or re-key anything. The digital dashboard capability significantly improves the management information available to them and a key benefit is that AccountsIQ has extensive functionality which can scale with them as they grow their business. With AccountsIQ’s open API, it was easy to integrate Continuum’s billing engine directly to AccountsIQ which has streamlined their processes and brought considerable efficiency advantages.

The TAS Group (now Altify) Moves Group-Wide Accounts Online to AccountsIQ

Executive Chairman of Altify, Donal Daly, explains,

We needed an accounting platform that allowed us to manage our global business with local and central access. AccountsIQ has been a huge improvement on our previous systems, giving our management team instant access to the latest information from all locations. AccountsIQ’s SaaS pricing model meant no upfront capital investment was required to put our group accounting systems in place.

Altify (previously known as the TAS group) was formed in 2006 following the merger of sales software company Select Selling with Siebel’s training arm to create sales effectiveness training and software solutions for large sales organisations internationally.

The Challenge

Altify had grown to a stage where it had subsidiaries in the US, Europe and the UK to deliver training and consulting services to a wide range of international customers, as well as a software development subsidiary in Ireland. Their existing systems were struggling to cope with increased volumes and the multi-jurisdiction aspect of the business provided challenges for the finance team in terms of monitoring its activities across different timezones and processing transactions in multiple currencies. They needed a platform that allowed them to manage the business across multiple geographies and currencies with access both locally and centrally.

Financial Controller, Dan Murphy, explains,

Our team evaluated a number of online solutions, and selected AccountsIQ, mainly because it handled all our complex multi-currency issues very well. We also wanted a solution we could later integrate with Salesforce to allow confirmed orders to be automatically transferred, and that integration was already in place.

The AccountsIQ team was able to convert all our historical data and was even able to facilitate us changing year ends after the first year, including re-aligning prior year values for comparative purposes.

The Solution

Altify decided an online accounting solution would complement its use of Salesforce and evaluated a number of solutions before choosing AccountsIQ. The solution included the full version of AccountsIQ with all its accounting modules and product-based sales invoicing and pricing. They also implemented the consolidation module to allow group-wide results to be produced including customer sales analysis.

Results

• World-wide access for subsidiary companies in US, Europe, UK & Ireland.
• Easy roll-out giving everyone an up-to-date view of company results at anytime.
• Handles multi-jurisdiction, multi-currency transactions with ease
• Visibility of group results and group sales analysis at the touch of a button
• Retained a full transaction history and facilitated altering the group year-end easily.

AccountsIQ’s personalised service delivery and commitment to innovation seal the deal with fast-growing tech provider, Zarion

Zarion Software is a leading provider of Intelligent work management for the financial services sector. Based in Dublin, Zarion has customers all over the world and partners in the USA, Australia and the UK. As a fast-growing technology company that is centered around providing intelligent data about work and the workforce to Operational managers, Zarion helps its customers increase efficiency by eliminating manual processes and increase visibility and flexibility to enable a hybrid or distributed workforce Digital innovation is not only core to their customer offering, but also to how they approach their own internal processes. When Ken O’Flaherty joined Zarion as CFO and found that their existing accounting system was bogged down with inefficiencies, he knew something had to change.

Ken had to decide whether to resurrect a partially completed implementation or start from scratch with something new. Ken decided to take a fresh perspective and consider other alternatives. Impressed with a flexible accounting framework, an “out-of-the-box” reporting structure, and a commitment to implementing the system in a way which would serve Zarion’s evolving needs, Ken decided to look no further when he came across AccountsIQ.

As a CFO it’s my responsibility to produce the necessary information for decision making. Every business has its nuances and requirements that don’t come with an out-of-the-box solution. Once I started the discussion with AccountsIQ, I immediately felt comfortable with their offering and that they were the right partner for us. I really just wanted to get going with it, which we did, and it’s not a decision I regret.” – Ken O’Flaherty, CFO, Zarion

Fast implementation with pro-active customer support

Once Ken made the decision to go with AccountsIQ, the system went live within six weeks. Built-in templates plus hands-on customer support made the process swift and straightforward.

AccountsIQ offers great support and good processes throughout implementation. It went through ahead of schedule and it was really easy. The upload templates around trial balance, historic data, and banking details were very intuitive. In terms of what we planned and what we budgeted for, we actually came out ahead.” – Ken O’Flaherty

Flexible accounting with built-in customisation as standard

As an SME, Zarion’s accounting needs were fairly straightforward with only a few intricacies requiring special attention. AccountsIQ benefits from an extremely flexible Business Intelligence (BI) coding structure and three tier General Ledger to accommodate these requirements. Larger vendors only seemed willing to provide Zarion with this extra level of customisation at a considerable cost.

Larger vendors don’t offer the same flexibility and level of customisation as AccountsIQ. Their message was: ‘this is not standard, this is going to be a complete workaround, this is going to cost you’… I didn’t get that with AccountsIQ. I wanted an accounting solution that could grow with us in terms of feature functionality and product roadmap. AccountsIQ gave me assurance that this would be the case and it’s proven to be the case.” – Ken O’Flaherty

Cloud-based as standard with key automation features that save time

A key requirement for Ken was that his accounting solution be truly “Cloud-first”, not Cloud as a bolt-on. Built in the Cloud, AccountsIQ enables access at all times from anywhere in the world. This includes workflow features and paperless document management that save time and make it easy to adapt to a remote working environment. Ken found particular benefits with AccountsIQ’s workflow approval processes and auditing.

AccountsIQ helped us accelerate our journey to a paperless system. Invoice and PO approvals are now paperless as standard. Where we’ve really seen a massive benefit is with remote auditing. The extraction of information is so much easier. This year we were able to close our audit in a week. AccountsIQ was fundamental in being able to do that. It’s a testament to the system.” – Ken O’Flaherty

Robust suite of reports

AccountsIQ comes with over 250 pre-built reports to make it easier for financial departments to get going with the software, minimising the need for external data handling. These reports added further efficiencies to Ken’s workflow with the added benefit of mitigating errors.

AccountsIQ’s reporting is really good. With other systems you have to export data and manipulate it in Excel the way you want. Here I found the out-of-the-box reports in the Management Accounts pack reflects the typical needs of CFOs or FDs. Even data around analysis of cash and customers and FX, it does a lot of things very, very well and that saves a lot of headache and potential mistakes.” – Ken O’Flaherty

Ongoing Product Innovation

Cloud-based reporting features, paperless accounting, and time-saving benefits were all key in Ken’s decision to choose AccountsIQ. However, it was AccountsIQ’s focus on development, commitment to innovation, and personal attention that confirmed his decision.

When we went through the detailed needs assessment with AccountsIQ we got a lot of comfort that the system could do what we needed it to do. I also found that, where I had concerns, AccountsIQ was very clear and proactive in pursuing a solution. I wanted an accounting platform that could grow with us in terms of feature functionality and product roadmap. AccountsIQ gave me assurance that this would be the case and it’s proven to be the case.” – Ken O’Flaherty