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Wealthpoint Successfully Manages 1000% Expansion with Microsoft Dynamics GP from Cipher Dynamics.
When Melbourne based investment service organization Wealthpoint undertook an intensive acquisition and expansion period, they soon found that a new business management solution was needed. Wealthpoint had acquired a number of complementary companies and business over the past 12 months to become a premier financial services company. During this period the company's assets increased from $7 million to over $50 million. Steven Zammit, financial controller of Wealthpoint stated, "In order for Wealthpoint to maintain its competitive position in the marketplace we needed to increase our capacity for handling growth and lower our transaction processing costs. Through improving our operating efficiencies and streamlining the management of information processes, we aimed to address the potentially negative impact that the rapid acquisition process could have on the business. "In order to integrate its business management and accountancy systems the company turned to Microsoft Dynamics GP solution from Cipher Dynamics for its back-end financial software requirements.
Why choose Microsoft Dynamics
Wealthpoint evaluated a number of different software solutions before selecting Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Mr Zammit, said, "The problems thrown up by the acquisition schedule were numerous. Each organization acquired had a different reporting system, different report writing software and different accountancy packages. We needed to introduce a standardized reporting system across all the newly formed areas of the company that was reliable and flexible enough to handle all our information requirements.
One of the main challenges to be solved by Dynamics GP was the integration of the general ledger, payables management, receivables management, cashbook and invoicing, into a single system. The old system wasn't GST compliant and could not meet expanding future requirements," he continued.
"The Microsoft Dynamics solution, Dynamics GP, offered more scalability and sophisticated reporting capabilities than our existing reporting structure. The design allowed input of data from multiple locations, online. It also contained sophisticated report writers that could be customized to break down or cross-reference data from the individual divisions financial systems, depending on our requirements. It was also very cost competitive, offering the same functionality as some of its significantly higher priced competitors," said Mr. Zammit.
Cipher Dynamics, a leading Microsoft Dynamics partner, was responsible for the implementation of the solution. They won Bourse's confidence because of the way they planned and presented the implementation process. This involved developing an implementation planning study, during which key areas for improvement over existing systems were identified. In addition, critical success factors were incorporated into the implementation process to ensure the project delivered optimum results.
"Cipher Dynamics took the time to get under the skin of the company and really understand our business requirements and processes," said Mr Zammit. "The implementation planning study Cipher Dynamics undertook addressed our concerns regarding current and future needs for the company. Having previously experienced a system that hadn't been designed with future expansion and flexibility in mind, naturally this was a very important issue for us."
Implementation of Microsoft Dynamics™ GP
Wealthpoint implemented Dynamics GP across the group of businesses to develop a fully integrated financial information system into the company. The Melbourne office was been set up as the central financial administration center and individual business units were able to load their data directly into a central processing unit situated there.
"Before embarking on the implementation, one of our main concerns was the amount of disruption that would be caused to the day to day operations of the company and especially our clients. However, due to Cipher's implementation methodology, the process was very efficient and installation was completed within six weeks," stated Mr Zammit.
"With any new system there is an understandable reluctance within the organization to change, however the specialist trainers from Cipher Dynamics used current financial data that our staff was familiar with which really helped the process along.
Wealthpoint also employed its own dedicated project manager to ensure that the implementation had internal support and direction, an aspect that can often be overlooked with such rapid expansion," he added.
Dynamics GP is designed to work with a range of third party software packages that may already be in place within an organization. Consequently existing software packages including Microsoft Office and Exchange were left in place and incorporated into the overall solution.
"The flexibility of the Dynamics GP package was a great bonus," state Mr. Zammit. "It ensured staff didn't have to retrain on new software programs, software replacement costs were not incurred and disruption was kept to a minimum."
Results
"The implementation of the Dynamics GP solution has led to a significant range of improvements across the company's financial reporting systems," stated Mr. Zammit. "The accounting division are now able to prepare GST compliant monthly financial reports and distribute them to the individual business unit managers with a minimum of delay. There has been a distinct improvement in the month end process and also a reduction in manual processes and duplication of data input.
"The new software enables access to information such as financials and margin analysis across the whole organization, allowing us to see the bigger picture for the first time. I am able to access reports for all the separate company divisions from one location and in a similar format so I can monitor and compare performance quickly and easily," stated Mr. Zammit.
"The electronic distribution of reports and on-line access has resulted in a dramatic decrease in paper-flow around the organization. We have also seen significant improvements in the quality and usefulness of the data we are now able to extract from the system.
The project was delivered on time and under budget. Following the introduction of Dynamics GP we estimate that the new system has saved around five and a half days per month and, generally, the return on investment has been excellent," he concluded.
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