Stratford-upon-Avon
13 The Courtyard
Timothy's Bridge Road
Stratford-Upon-Avon
Warwickshire CV37 9NP
Wovenhill was born in 2001 and operates an online store offering a wide range of high-quality wicker home storage products and related accessories.
Overview
Following a recommendation Wovenhill chose GJA to implement and manage a new cloud-based accounting application using Xero. An analysis of business processes and challenges identified a number of other areas where use of the right technology would lead to time savings and operational improvement.
Our contributions:
- Fully understand the problems and goals.
- Identify and implement the right cloud-based technology solutions.
- Provide access to real time financial information
- Improved efficiency to free time to allow maximum focus on sales, marketing and customer fulfilment.
- Improved GJA Financial Management Technology Index score from 9/24 at outset to 18/24 at completion.
Context & Challenge
Background
Wovenhill commenced a review of their accountants after receiving no support when moving software to meet HMRC’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) requirements.
The GJA Financial Management Technology Index* score at outset: 9
*The GJA Technology Index measures the level of successful adoption of financial management technology within the business. A score of 1 being the lowest and 24 the highest.
The problem – the why?
Key problems were:
- The only involvement from the previous accountants was to prepare annual accounts post year end.
- Day to day accounting was time consuming, with areas such as VAT returns and stock reconciliation undertaken by the founder.
- The process of moving from Sage Desktop to Sage Online was managed solely by the founder with no assistance from the accountant.
- Sage online was cumbersome, including a number of areas where items were duplicated.
- Processes were very time consuming and involved a lot of manual intervention.
Project goals
Key goals were:
- Simplify processes to save time and money.
- Improve usability of software
- Generate better management information.
- Enable greater focus on sales, marketing and customer fulfilment.
Process & Insights
During the ‘getting to know you’ process the following points were identified:
- A large volume of small value transactions took place.
- There were a number of errors in the original Sage Online Set-up.
- Sage Online was not reconciling to the bank account.
- The client was spending many hours each month managing the system at the expense of other priorities.
- The Amazon account was only being logged in the software when a drawdown was completed meaning sales and accounts were not reconciling.
Solutions
Our team, led by a Director and a Client Manager, collaborated closely with the founder of Wovenhill to evaluate solutions to the problems. This resulted in GJA managing a project covering:
- Xero, cloud-based accounting solution implementation
- Conversion of prior year end to Xero to ensure correct opening balances.
- As part of transfer to Xero GJA also reconciled first two months to ensure all systems and processes running correctly.
- Following month 3 handover to client he now plans to undertake work himself for two months to learn the system and may then pass back to GJA to do work moving forward.
- Veeqo, cloud-based inventory and shipping application for ecommerce – with API links to eBay, PayPal and Wicker, plus automatic post of every sale to Xero.
- Xero now pulls through vast amount of sales automatically, with client undertaking a very small amount of manual work on key accounts by personal preference.
- Amazon to be automatically integrated to Xero as soon as they release a Xero API.
- Hub Doc, cloud-based solution that extracts key information from receipts, bills and invoices and imports to Xero to remove need for manual data entry and filing
- Training provided to client, who was immediately competent and immediately looking ahead to future improvements that he could make.
Results
A great start. It’s still early days, yet the results have exceeded expectations:
- Far less focus on administration.
- Improved financial visibility.
- Improved stock control.
- Far more focus on sales, marketing and customer fulfilment.
- Future areas for improvement have been identified eg automation of Amazon journals
The GJA Financial Management Technology Index* score now: 18
The GJA Financial Management Technology Index* score
*The GJA Technology Index measures the level of successful adoption of financial management technology within the business. A score of 1 being the lowest and 24 the highest.
You might also
like these
by GJ Associates
Customs controls from 1 January 2022
by GJ Associates
Notifying cessation of self-employment
by GJ Associates
Realise your ambitions – get in touch today
Grenfell James Technology Adoption Index
How does your business perform against others adopting financial tech? Find out with our interactive diagnostic:
1.
How does your business receive invoices?
A)
Invoices are mainly received in paper form
B)
Invoices are mainly received by email
C)
Invoices are emailed then automatically forwarded to a designated mailbox
2.
How are purchase invoices processed?
A)
Invoices are entered manually
B)
Invoices are attached to manually raised invoices
C)
Automated software (e.g. ReceiptBank, 1Tap, HubDoc etc) collates invoices
3.
How are accounts processed?
A)
Using Excel/paper-based
B)
Using Computer-based, offline software
C)
Using cloud-based accountancy software
4.
How often is business data revised?
A)
Data is updated annually
B)
Data is updated quarterly
C)
Data is updated monthly or more often
5.
How is banking updated for your business?
A)
Banking is updated manually
B)
Banking is updated by imports
C)
Banking is updated via a live feed
6.
How are bank payments made?
A)
Bank payments are manual
B)
Bank payments are made using bulk imports
C)
Bank payments are made directly via accounting software
7.
How are bank receipts reconciled?
A)
Receipts are chased and reconciled manually
B)
Receipts are chased and reconciled automatically
C)
A third-party platform is used to chase debts and collect fees
8.
How often are management reports produced?
A)
No reports are provided
B)
Reports are provided but often too late to be valuable
C)
Reports are automated with real-time information
Score 8-12:
Curious Exploration
Your financial technology phase is Curious Exploration
% of respondent businesses are in this phase too.
Switching accountancy systems may seem like an upheaval, but can be much more straightforward than most businesses imagine. From talking to our clients, they have found moving from paper invoicing and desktop-based accounting software to the cloud and apps quickly makes the transition process a worthwhile investment of time. Digital accounting solutions bring in streamlined processes, up-to-date business data and greater confidence in the accuracy of information when making financial decisions.
Grenfell James works with your team to fully assess the needs of your business and minimise the impact of any transitions for solutions we recommend.
Score 13-19:
Measured Discovery
Your financial technology phase is Measured Discovery
% of respondent businesses are in this phase too.
Once cloud accountancy software is in place, there’s still plenty of scope to improve your accountancy processes and make sure your business is maximising the benefits of adopting a digital accounting solution. Grenfell James assesses each business to understand how any implemented solutions are being used, identify areas for improvement and the needs of the business overall to support your business goals and achieve success.
Our team of experts can discuss a range of time-saving automation and get different apps and cloud-based solutions talking to create and manage a digital accountancy eco-system to help your business grow.
Score 20-24:
Bold Innovation
Your financial technology phase is Bold Innovation
% of respondent businesses are in this phase too.
You know the benefits of accounting technology and the impact it can have on your business goals. If you want to take it a step further, our team can conduct a systematic review of your processes, apps and business goals to ensure your digital accountancy ecosystem is keeping pace with the changing needs of a growing business.