Founded in 1947, Norman Rourke Pryme (NRP Ltd) is a multi-disciplinary consultancy working across the building, highways and infrastructure and transportation sectors. It provides considered advice on development and investment strategies, risk management, procurement strategy and design development. The construction, transport and infrastructure sectors are a fluid and ever improving environment. NRP’s corporate ethos is to maintain the agile and close-knit nature of a small to medium company and to focus on reinvesting into its people and tools.
NRP needed a strong Finance (accounts and bookkeeping) team to support their growing business and to ensure their reporting was up to scratch and meeting legal requirements. They had identified a range of issues that they wanted to address. These included wanting to improve the visibility and ownership of p&l reporting. Their old accounting software was not available to management and other business systems and was not configured to capture information at the right level of detail. They also wanted to improve the management of their cash flow and ensure that all their accounting systems were robust and compliant while delivering time and cost efficiencies.
As always, we started with an initial discovery meeting where we worked with NRP to understand and agree its requirements. A key outcome was the need to transfer their accounts system from Sage desktop to Xero and integrate/implement additional tools to add strong control, approvals and automation to the entire finance function. To address the challenges and aims of the business we recommended using a suite of selected software platforms which included:
The first stage was to move NRP from Sage to Xero using MoveMyBooks so that we had the full data history on one system. We put in place Dext as the purchase processing app to automate the data entry of costs. We setup bank feeds for the current account and their credit card provider so that we could bookkeep the ledgers daily.
We integrated WebExpenses, which was their current staff expense product that they used, directly with Xero so that we can just push the claims through with no manual data entry. Approval Max was implemented which gave NRP a purchase order system with a strong cost approval matrix. As with all the new systems, the NRP team were given full training on how to create purchase orders and then subsequently how to approve any bills that came through.
We integrated the payroll product Brightpay into Xero so that the journals were automated each month by department. By implementing Telleroo we were able to put tight controls and also a new level of automation on the fortnightly supply runs.
From a clear understanding of the issues and our expertise in the use of accounting software we were able to quickly identify the right packages for the client to achieve their aims. Farnell Clarke managed all the setup of every new embedded accounting software which included full training and support for the internal NRP team the new systems where required.
By moving to a fully outsourced solution with Farnell Clarke, NRP have addressed all their identified issues and found considerable efficiencies and cost savings. Following the implementation, training, and adoption of the new recommended software applications, they have been able to significantly reduce both time and cost delivering the efficiencies and savings they were looking for. The new processes have also delivered much greater insight into their financial position and business performance with new monthly Management Information packs allowing a proactive rather than reactive management of the business.
Farnell Clarke are now acting as NRP’s fully outsourced finance team. We manage the finance inbox, answer queries, bookkeep daily the purchase ledger and the bank and provide all the key reporting. Data is now more reliable, up to date and accessible to the wider team. There is also now strong visibility on spending and approvals throughout the finance processes a key required outcome.
