Cloud accounting software for technology companies

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.

Interested in becoming a partner?

Learn more about the AccountsIQ partner programme and find out how you can leverage AccountsIQ to deliver high value projects to growing businesses.

If you’d like to request a call back from our Partnerships Team, get in touch.

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To see for yourself our award-winning accounting software, register for one of our webinars.  View customer testimonials.

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.”

PortSwigger uses AccountsIQ’s open API to integrate business systems and support their growth potential

PortSwigger is a global leader in cyber security, creating cutting edge software and research to help individuals and organisations “secure the web”. The company launched in 2003 with its flagship security testing tool Burp Suite. Now in early 2021, with 52,000 customers and 13,000 enterprises using its products, PortSwigger has firmly established itself as a thought leader in web security and has ambitious growth plans.

These plans are what led the finance department to reconsider its existing accounting software, QuickBooks, which was already struggling to cope with the business’s growing volume of transactions as well as payroll for its 80 employees. And with plans to significantly expand its staff in the coming years, PortSwigger clearly needed an accounting system that could scale.

AccountsIQ not only offered the cloud accounting features that they needed at an affordable price, it also offered a compatible ethos and agile approach to software development that PortSwigger’s team could happily work with as they pursue their growth strategy.

Integrating in-house systems with AccountsIQ’s API

PortSwigger has its own in-house tool “Swig Portal” for tracking sales data and software licence sales, built by their own team of engineers. A big challenge with QuickBooks was bringing together the data from these two disconnected systems to produce accurate reports. AccountsIQ has an open accounting API strategy which allows PortSwigger to integrate its own CRM with AccountsIQ, linking the two data sources and bringing their business intelligence onto one cohesive platform. Helen MacDonald, Finance Manager at PortSwigger, explains:

Helen Macdonald, Finance Manager, PortSwigger

The integration and the API are what we’ve really been happy with. We have developers in house who roll their eyes when you talk about the other larger accounting software vendors because they are so cumbersome. Our team found it really easy working with AccountsIQ to get it all up and running. That’s what really sold us.”

Integrated OCR technology for significant time and resource savings

In addition to their own in-house CRM, the finance team is also benefiting from AccountsIQ’s ability to integrate with AutoEntry — an intelligent, automated add-on OCR solution which removes the need for manual data entry of invoices.

We’re the sort of company that looks to streamline and make internal processes more efficient. Previously, we were manually inputting invoices and uploading PDFs – which was slow and prone to inaccuracies,” said Helen.

AutoEntry was really easy to set up. AutoEntry captures and analyses all our invoices and it automatically posts this data to AccountsIQ. It took us about two days to get up and running and now we’re saving about half a day per month alone just on invoice processing. It makes auditing easier because we simply give the auditors a login and they can find everything they need.”

Better reporting tools with scope for expansion

With income from a combination of individuals and enterprises, received via various payment methods and in a range of currencies (including Bitcoin), integration with the CRM is vital for streamlining income, and the three levels of BI codes PortSwigger is using in AccountsIQ allows the team to draw analysis in a combination of ways.

QuickBooks didn’t allow us to segment our reports across the business. So the BI codes within AccountsIQ are great. We now have three BI codes so we can report on each of the different levels,” said Helen.

She adds:

We’re growing quickly and wanted to make sure we had all the functionality in place so that once we’re larger, we could easily change our accounting system to adapt. There are plenty of features in AccountsIQ that we’re not using, but we know they’re there because the implementation team have explained how they will work for us in the future. We didn’t expect this level of engagement from a supplier.”

Proactive support from AccountsIQ

AccountsIQ prides itself in the level of support and attention that the accounting software implementation team provides to new users. Here PortSwigger’s team, meticulous and detail-oriented, found a supplier that took on board their specific challenges and came back with solutions to their nuanced accounting needs.

The implementation process was faultless, we migrated from QuickBooks and had regular meetings and encouragement to keep us on track. The API was the feature that sold AccountsIQ to us and it has been great. The support is superb so any issues we have ever had have been resolved quickly.” – Helen MacDonald

“We haven’t bought software that will never change”

AccountsIQ and PortSwigger have a few crucial things in common. Both are software companies aiming to differentiate through next level agility, pushing the boundaries, a great company culture, and an attitude of going beyond just the software to really solve their customers’ problems. These mutually-shared values have enabled PortSwigger’s finance operation to get up and running quickly with confidence that this solution will carry them into the future.

A challenge with taking on a new supplier, especially in software, is: are they going to be around in five years’ time? It feels like a gamble. But with AccountsIQ we have a well-established accounting package with a track record of excellence. What we appreciate with AccountsIQ is that, like us, they’re developing the software constantly. We’re really happy with the improvements we’ve seen so far – they’ve improved our business processes as a result. We haven’t bought software that will never change and we really appreciate that. We feel like we’re with the right partner.” – Helen MacDonald