APS Materials rapidly achieves efficiency savings with Sage 200 from Pinnacle

Finance Manager Sue Stephenson explains why the company needed to implement new technology to support its finance operations: "Until a couple of years ago, finance processes were outsourced to an external organisation. This wasn’t very satisfactory as, inevitably, there were delays in our requests being actioned and we had to follow their processes. For example, setting up a new supplier could take up to a week. As the business grew, we wanted more autonomy and explored the possibility of bringing all our finance processes fully in-house."

Once the field was narrowed down to Sage 200, three Sage Business Partners were invited to tender and Pinnacle emerged as the front-runner to implement the solution. Sue comments, "We made the decision in Pinnacle’s favour because of the professionalism they displayed. It was a different experience talking to them – more about their listening to what we need than them giving us the hard sell. We also felt that they were a good match with our own organisation in terms of size and capabilities."

Checks were carried out to ensure that Sage 200 could map onto ASV’s specific business processes, especially for purchase order authorisation. Sue adds, "If we had to heavily customise the solution, that would have been a showstopper, but Sage 200 had the flexibility to do what we need it to do within the standard functionality."

The race was then on to have the new solution in place by the start of ASV’s financial year in August – a deadline that Pinnacle successfully met. Looking back, Sue feels that she built a good partnership with Pinnacle during the implementation project: "I made sure that we kept our commitments as Pinnacle did theirs, and it was remarkably painless. It went very smoothly, in fact, causing no real stress, which was a pleasant surprise as it was a significant transition for the business."

Coming up to date, Sue says, "We now have a robust system in place, supporting us day to day. Being able to carry out tasks in-house makes running our finance processes much quicker and easier. We’ve eliminated the time lags that were once endemic."

She gives an example: "We have good relationships with our suppliers, many of whom are local businesses, and we’re now able to set them up quickly on the system and ensure they are paid promptly, rather than having to chase a third-party to do so. This gives us much greater control."

"The first year end using Sage 200 went fine and we’re now confidently approaching our second year end. By commissioning Pinnacle to implement Sage 200, we have achieved self-sufficiency in our finance operation, and now feel in charge of our own destiny."

Although implementing and using the Sage 200 solution has been plain sailing, Sue values being able to call on Pinnacle for support: "We haven’t had many issues at all, but whenever we’ve needed to contact Pinnacle they have always responded promptly. They also provide a useful channel to Sage and often have ideas on how we can extend our use of the software. While we’re very happy with what we have at the moment – and there are still areas of the software that we haven’t yet fully explored – it’s good to know that the Pinnacle team are always there should we need any development work."