Frenkel Topping moves to the cloud

Frenkel Topping has over 30 years’ experience of providing independent financial advice for individuals who have suffered personal injury and clinical negligence. We spoke to Group Financial Controller, Paul Williams, about how they came to choose a Sage Intacct partner.

Frenkel Topping have long held a market-leading position and have recently implemented an ambitious acquisition strategy that has seen their staff numbers more than double in the last 12 months.

Paul explained that the majority of the companies they have acquired use Sage 50 like themselves, but now the group has outgrown the system’s capabilities. They need finance software that can provide continuity for their users who are based in different locations, adding;

“We have finance staff here in Manchester and now Doncaster too. There’s also much more remote working now than we had before, which is likely to continue, so we definitely need a truly cloud-based solution that our users can access wherever they are."

Finding the perfect solution 

The team are currently heavily reliant on Excel spreadsheets, and find it time consuming to pull usable data from them. So when a consultant recommended Datel, Paul was keen to discover if any of the Sage solutions within our portfolio would be the answer to their needs. After an initial review, Datel presented a few options before submitting a detailed proposal and demonstration, which impressed Paul; “You put in the leg work to find out what was important to us, and tailored the demo around that, which made all the difference.”

Soon enough it was clear that Sage Intacct would be the perfect option, in terms of both price and functionality. Since Intacct was designed as a completely cloud-based application, it’s entirely accessible via the internet using any web browser, which is ideal for Paul’s remote team; “It’ll be fantastic for everyone to be able to login on any of their devices and get the same experience every time, whether they’re in the office, at home or travelling.” 
 
Paul was excited by the efficiencies going cloud could bring, but he was even more delighted when he saw the impressive dashboard reporting options. “Seeing how easy it is to tailor dashboards in Intacct was the cherry on top for me. I can’t wait to create a dashboard where I can see the important stats across all the businesses on the same page.” 

Going the extra mile 

Realising how much time Sage Intacct was going to save him and the rest of the business, his heart sank when an obstacle came up that threatened to halt proceedings entirely. However as Paul explains, the fear was short lived; “We came up against quite a big challenge once we got stuck into mapping our requirements and I was concerned Intacct wasn’t going to be a possibility for us. But Lorna [Senior Consultant at Datel] went away and came up with a solution. She thought about it over the weekend and by Monday presented to me how it could be fixed. It saved the project so I've been really, really impressed with Datel.” 

The efficiencies that a Sage Intacct partner will provide means Paul is keen to get the new system up and running as fast as possible, while also making sure it is done right. We are hoping integration will be complete in a few months and are excited to see how it will support this growing company.