The Fair is an award-winning large-scale event and festival production company based in East London. They have built a strong reputation for focussing on the three key areas of safety, quality and budget. Since 2000, they have delivered world-class large-scale events and festivals through our expert teams specialising in Event Production, Licensing & Health and Safety. From running virtual events to major music shows including Kisstory on the Common for Kiss FM, We Are The Fair has built an excellent reputation for delivery.
The Fair needed a new bookkeeper to manage their purchase ledger and complete weekly payment runs. They also wanted to work with an outsourcing specialist who would add real value to their business and also work with them to advice and support with sourcing, implementing and using the right software applications for their business and sector.
Farnell Clarke were actually recommended by their own Finance Director. The starting point however was an initial call to understand the current situation with their bookkeeper and learn about their frustrations and discuss software that could be implemented to help make improvements.
We took time to work with The Fair team to understand the flow of information and to understand how purchase invoices were currently received and then the approval process and project allocation within their team. We also reviewed the client’s Xero and identified areas that needed bringing up to date, such as the credit card balances and old purchase ledger items.
The business already had the accounting software Dext in place, however this was not working efficiently as we expected. We investigated how invoices were being sent to Dext and changed the process slightly to ensure all the information was being extracted accurately from invoices.
After first taking on the client, we had a one-off task of tidying the purchase ledger and ensuring all credit cards and bank accounts were reconciled to date. We supported the business managing manual payment runs for the first couple of weeks until Telleroo was setup.
This then lead the way for us to deal with current purchase invoices and managing the finance inbox more efficiently. The process of implementing Telleroo allowed us to complete payment runs efficiently on a weekly basis. Since taking on the engagement we have also been asked to take on the credit control for the business. We implemented Chaser to replace adhoc emails that were being sent out by the client giving a more structured and end user friendly system and more control for the finance team.
New weekly reporting meetings have been put in place which help proactively identify issues and ensure they are dealt with promptly. All this allowing the owners to focus on the business knowing the finance is being monitored and managed correctly.
