Kings Secure Technologies sought to replace its spreadsheet system with a more flexible financial reporting tool. Neil Cossey, Chief Financial Officer at Kings, pictured, says: “As a complex group with a consolidation, we needed a reliable reporting tool that would deliver a degree of flexibility and dynamism to change our reporting structure.”
All Kings executives have a PLC background and have been used to having access to real-time granular financial information. It was agreed that a more agile and flexible reporting solution was required to replace the spreadsheet process, that would give the finance team the ability to report the numbers in a variety of ways. Cloud CFO was identified during a chance conversation with a colleague. “Everyone was sold on its simplicity and its resilience,” adds Neil.
Cloud CFO is an online spreadsheet add-on that automates consolidation, financial reporting and forecasting. It requires no change in business processes and lets businesses such as Kings preserve their existing spreadsheets. All formulae and rules are preserved in a cloud database and then executed in such a way as to ensure data integrity, the product developers add.
Having Cloud CFO in-house will mean that all of the finance team have shared visibility of the business’s figures. One of Neil’s aims is to get away from the rigidity of the way the information has been presented up until now, and the tool will allow the finance team to deliver consistent and accurate reporting as soon as the trial balance has been loaded. The tool’s ability to forecast also featured heavily in the decision process. Neil says: “Historically, all our forecasting has been done on several spreadsheets. We are now at a stage as a business when we need to be able to look closely at that data, so we can make business decisions accordingly.”
Neil sees one of the real advantages of deploying the tool is that he and his team will have access to their own tool set. This means that if anything needs changing, they are able to do it themselves without having to call in contractors. The developer Synapse has recreated the original reporting pack adopted by Kings and all of last year’s data has been loaded into Cloud CFO. The plan is to run the first month’s reporting using the existing spreadsheet system and replicate it on Cloud CFO to ensure they match.
Neil says: “Implementing the Cloud CFO reporting tool is very exciting, and we are looking forward to being able to use it to produce our statutory accounts in as little as 24 hours after the end of month 12. This will be a game-changer for us and for all other companies who are faced with a consolidation.” A new statutory accounts production solution with full iXBRL tagging is to be launched with a new version of Cloud CFO shortly.
Neil’s advice to others is: “Take a look at Cloud CFO – the solution sells itself. The Synapse team is so enthusiastic.”
