Cloud accounting software for technology companies

StitcherAds use AccountsIQ to support ambitious growth plans

StitcherAds is a Facebook and Instagram marketing partner, building technology to help advertisers scale their marketing campaigns and use data-fuelled automation to drive sales online and in-store. With offices in the U.S., Ireland and the UK, StitcherAds maintains three separate legal entities in each of these locations.

When Fiona McKenna joined the business in July 2019 to lead the finance team, she quickly realised that their Quickbooks accounting system had major shortfalls in terms of accurate reporting, with significant challenges around foreign currencies and consolidation.

Fiona explains “The key requirements were: a simple system navigable by non-accountants, capable of rapid deployment, and Cloud-based with multi-user capabilities, consolidation, and ability to scale as the business grows.”

StitcherAds has ambitious growth plans and we need to be able to slot in new entities. I compared three systems and AccountsIQ proved the best solution to meet our needs now and in the future.”

Quick to implement with responsive reports

Fiona managed the implementation of AccountsIQ within the StitcherAds finance team, with support from AccountsIQ who advised how to setup the accounting system from scratch. The whole process took about four weeks. “I found the AccountsIQ team incredibly flexible in terms of helping us with the implementation. We got great value from the service,” said Fiona.

Excellent consolidation functionality

Consolidation was critical for StitcherAds which previously used spreadsheets to manage the accounts across three legal entities. This was cumbersome to maintain and invariably led to inaccuracies in reporting. AccountsIQ made consolidation simple.

The consolidation functionality in AccountsIQ is excellent,” says Fiona. “It’s a very good solution for our stage of development and our budget.”

Find out how AccountsIQ can help you with your accounting, consolidation and reporting needs, call us on +44 (0)203 598 7350 or Contact us.

Quick to learn with better business insights

AccountsIQ has an easy-to use interface, navigation and smart query tools that are intuitive to use, even for non-accountants.

You don’t need to be an accountant to use AccountsIQ. It’s quite intuitive, the reports are very good and very reliable,” says Fiona. “It’s nice and simple to use; I don’t have to do lots of tidy ups. This is quite unusual for a platform of this kind. No manual intervention is required.”

Fiona and her team also benefit from better insights and improved visibility into the organisation assisted by AccountsIQ’s Cloud-based business analysis features and pre-configured reports. “I can log in remotely and only have to look in two places to know exactly where we’re at. In terms of business information, it’s been an absolute godsend,” says Fiona.

Time-saving benefits

The move to AccountsIQ radically streamlined and simplified the accounting process across all of StitcherAds’ entities. This not only enabled more accurate reporting, but also saved a significant amount of time.

We have a much faster month-end close, shaving 15 days off typically. We’re now closing on day 10, when we used to close the books around the 25th. Previously this was unheard of in the business. Now that we have a simpler system to use, we now have more time to dedicate to more strategic work.”

A high standard of product for fast-growing startups and medium-sized businesses

StitcherAds demonstrates AccountsIQ’s suitability for smaller businesses with big growth plans. In particular, AccountsIQ is an affordable accounting solution that can grow with the business.

AccountsIQ is a high standard of product at the right budget for a medium-sized company. As a smaller business it’s tempting to go with a simpler solution such as QuickBooks or Xero, but these platforms don’t scale as well as AccountsIQ. With excellent tools for consolidation and custom reporting, AccountsIQ offers a more robust accounting solution that can quickly adapt to the changing needs of a fast growing business like ours, while still remaining very affordable.”

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

The benefits of partnering with AccountsIQ - ION Industries

ION Industries Ltd, who deliver business and financial transformation through the application of market-leading technologies such as AccountsIQ, have been a business partner for two years. As an implementation partner, ION is licensed to resell AccountsIQ, and implement and customise the software to suit individual customer needs.

As the AccountsIQ Lead Implementation Consultant at ION, David Tinnion has been responsible for implementing AccountsIQ for clients such as Ramarketing, BayWa r.e. and Oxford Royale Academy:

We wanted to find a market leading mid-market Cloud accounting product and were delighted to discover AccountsIQ could offer our clients everything they needed in one system,” explains David.

Getting new partners on board

Prior to carrying out any projects, new partners are given in-depth training carried out by one of AccountsIQ’s product specialists. Additional support and guidance are provided within the product itself, for example, Help Juice articles and FAQs. Partners are continually supported by a dedicated Partner Manager and are kept up-to-date with new product features.

At the outset of the relationship, one of AccountsIQ’s product specialists (Ellen) came to us on site to provide in depth product training which was great. We also have a weekly call with Ellen to go over any issues – her product knowledge is exceptional,” explains David.

AccountsIQ’s e-Learning platform ‘AIQ Academy’, containing hundreds of video product tutorials, enables partners to access on-demand training on specific features and makes it easy for partners to support their customers.

From an implementation perspective, AccountsIQ is incredibly easy to work with. The system gives you a lot of information that you need on-screen, and it guides you through the process.”

Easy customer onboarding

A recent implementation that David has worked on is Lepra, the international charity working to beat leprosy. The Lepra project was really straightforward and the implementation aspect of the project, prior to UAT, was performed within a week.

The Lepra project is a great example of how well and completely seamlessly an implementation can go. The in-product guidance within AccountsIQ is easy to understand and bringing the data into AccountsIQ is incredibly straightforward.”

What features does David like best?

• The fact AccountsIQ is fully cloud-based, and it has an incredibly easy to use interface.
• Powerful reporting and dashboard functionality, incredible consolidation and multi-currency functionality.
• Easy to maintain and manage access with the user permissions settings.
• Easy allocation to different companies.
• Bank Reconciliation feature to either match manually or configure rules to do this automatically.
• Incredibly easy to adopt the product with on-screen help and in-product support.
• Approvals, from a supplier and dimensional level for multiple transaction types, with the benefit of being able to submit to an approver who isn’t setup as an AccountsIQ user.
• Powerful integration with CRM and other 3rd party platforms including Salesforce.

There is so much versatility within the product in comparison with similar desktop-based or hybrid cloud products. After over 20 years in Accounting Software implementation, I would say that the intuitiveness of the AccountsIQ system is second to none. We know that for many, getting people onboarded with new software can be challenging, but with AccountsIQ, our customers have found their teams were able to make use of the system straightaway.”

A key benefit David has discovered when implementing AccountsIQ is the huge timesaving gained by clients.

For Lepra in particular, the levels of automation within AccountsIQ have proven to be hugely beneficial. Having previously needed a third-party product to handle bank reconciliation, involving multiple data downloads and uploads, Lepra have been able to significantly reduce this 11-step process to just a 3-step process with the introduction of AccountsIQ into their business.

“Lepra are very happy with the product, AccountsIQ has been a massive time-saver for them.” 

AccountsIQ was the only solution we found that combined the ease of use of cloud based accounting systems and the multi-dimensional analysis that is needed for charity accounting at a cost that we liked!” Nick Avery, Director of Resources, Lepra. Read Lepra Case Study.

Ramarketing, an award-winning pharmaceutical PR and digital agency, multi-entity consolidation and the ability to handle multiple currencies were key objectives when looking for a new accounting system. The powerful consolidation and multi-currency accounting functionality of AccountsIQ were just two of the many features of the system that met the business requirements for Ramarketing, hence ION recommended and implemented AccountsIQ to replace Sage Financials.

Ramarketing were looking for an SME solution that provided a variety of insights into project profit-bility, whilst managing group consolidation and multi-currency. ION helped us select, implement and support the introduction of AccountsIQ to achieve this, without compromising the statutory requirements of an accounting system.” Barry Goddard, Finance Director, Ramarketing. Read Ramarketing Case Study.

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