Furniture supplier Dovetail uses business and accounting
software to reduce reporting timescales by 80%
Dovetail Contract Furniture Ltd, a service-based supplier of
office furniture, has completed an order valued in the region of
£40,000 with Whitegate Computing Ltd for business and accounting
software, Exchequer from IRIS Enterprise Software.
Exchequer was chosen for its flexible job costing module and
comprehensive OLE report writing functionality. It replaces a
software system put in place by Dovetail's sister company, part of
WPP Group.
The versatility of the OLE Report Writer module is bringing
significant benefits to Dovetail, which it is using to provide a
seamless link between Microsoft Excel and the financial management
data held within Exchequer. This enables Dovetail to integrate
information with ease from one database to another, providing
access to real live data at any given time, which greatly reduces
the need for manual intervention that is time consuming and prone
to errors.
The job costing module combined with Exchequer's reporting
capabilities is enabling Dovetail to track the status and
profitability of individual jobs. Bruce Taylor, Financial Director
at Dovetail, explains, "Our business information is now far more
transparent as we are able to spot mistakes quickly, address them
and learn from them to improve our processes and become more
efficient. Day-to-day financial management is far easier as we can
very easily allocate incoming invoices to jobs as soon as they are
received and run reports to check the status of jobs, such as when
the customer is due to be invoiced, whilst alerting us if any job
margins have slipped."
 |
He continues, "The reports we have access to now are at least three
times more relevant and valid than what we had before, but it only
takes half of the time to produce them. Overall, the key business
information
 |
we draw from the system only takes about 20% of the time it used to
take via the old software as the information is now available at my
fingers tips. We therefore have far greater control of the business
as a result of improved reporting."
To deliver further efficiencies in the organisation, Dovetail
will also be looking to take advantage of Exchequer's Paperless
module and the time sheets within the Job Costing module. The
paperless module will enable the finance department to send out
documents and reports,
such as orders, invoices and statements, in a secure format, by fax
or email, saving a considerable amount of time and money on
stationery, postage and administration, while use of the time
sheets will enable better project planning and improved cost
control in project management. |
|
