Opera Holdings

The challenge

Move to the cloud and simplify intercompany accounting

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Running the finance operation for a group of recruitment companies can be complicated.  The team at Opera Holdings handles the finances of eight businesses, producing full accounts for each company and drilling down into the detail for individual cost centres. “The hardest part of running the group is the intercompany administration,” says Simon Alderman, Group IT Director. “We have information feeds coming from each of the companies into head office. Each of those feeds that are to do with the sales or purchase ledger will require their own coding. They may require their own VAT treatment. They will certainly require their own reporting.”

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‍The business used an on-premises software system, Safe Financials.  When that product was being moved to the cloud, with the prospect of considerable pain and cost, it was an opportunity to examine alternatives. Simon discussed the company’s needs with the head office team, led by Chief Value Officer Paul Lawrence, and they weighed iplicit against two other suppliers. They chose iplicit as a cloud product that could handle complexity and intercompany accounting. “After looking at it, we felt it was going to be able to take care of things in a more straightforward way than some of the competitor products – and crucially, at a not unreasonable cost,” says Simon.

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“iplicit allows us to do different things, in a better way. It also future-proofs us, so we don’t have to keep looking to upgrade the software.” Simon Alderman, Group IT Director

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The solution

System handles complexity and produces the reports the team needs

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Opera Holdings had a “very good” experience with iplicit’s training and implementation teams.  “I think the professionalism of the project management was great. iplicit has some very good people working for it,” says Simon. “I always had the feeling that staff were being made available when needed and we always had some means of getting answers fairly quickly.

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“If you’re going into something like this, it’s important to get it right and it’s good to know there are people who can dig you out of a hole that might be of our own making. I don’t think anybody’s had anything bad to say about the implementation and training.”

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Opera Holdings has seen substantial time savings from iplicit and has noted a long list of advantages over its previous software.  “We were going from an old-fashioned package into something new, so there were considerable benefits. The staff are very pleased with it,” says Simon.  “It’s easy on the eye and it’s very easy to create workflows, to customise your interface and get at the information you want, when you want it, in the format you want. It’s cloud-based, so I don’t have to worry particularly about software backups and that sort of thing, so that takes away a headache.”  

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For those who use the system most, the key benefits include:

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● automatic bank reconciliation

● the iplicit app for claiming and approving expenses;

● the ability to use reporting templates rather than create reports from scratch

● notifications to alert people to actions they need to take.  

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“The email communication side of things seems to work very well too – the ease with which we can send out remittance advice and that sort of thing,” says Simon. “Things are easier and quicker. There’s no question that it’s saving us time.”

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“It’s easy on the eye and it’s very easy to create workflows, to customise your interface and get at the information you want, when you want it, in the format you want.” Simon Alderman, Group IT Director

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The outcome

Business future-proofed with no need to upgrade software

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“iplicit allows us to do different things, in a better way,” says Simon. “It also future-proofs us, so we don’t have to keep looking to upgrade the software. It might sound trivial, but with the on-premises software, there are end-of-year upgrades you’ve got to run, and then there are new bits in between. One of the benefits of being in the cloud is that all that side of things is taken care of, so we get the new features coming through automatically.”

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As the person responsible for IT, Simon hears about any concerns about new systems.  “It’s the nature of my job that I rarely hear good things about anything,” he admits.  “I hear a lot of noise about bad things, but I haven’t had anyone complaining to me about iplicit. That’s a big plus as far as I’m concerned! It’s working well for us.”

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