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Primary Industries buys Pegasus Opera II

15th Jan 2009
Brought to you by
pegasus
We’ve been creating market-leading accounting software since 1981 and in that time we’ve come a...
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“Pegasus Opera II has enabled accurate management accounts to be run quickly and in a helpful format, enabling management to cut overhead costs…”

Customer Profile

Primary Industries are steel traders; generally they hold no stock themselves, but match buyers and sellers of steel, shipping large quantities from one part of the world to another. Established over 30 years ago, they currently employ 20 staff and 2007 group turnover was £151 million.

The Challenge

Primary Industries were using an old bespoke system on mainframe (UNIX) technology. The system was originally set up for a much bigger trading company over 20 years ago. It was now unsupported and most of those trained on the system had retired, so bringing on new users was extremely difficult. There was no real front end to the system and it was not user friendly.

On the reporting side, the incumbent system was extremely inflexible. Extracting data was difficult as the user needed to know both the file and database structure to export first to a ‘dbf’ file, and from there to a spreadsheet. There were few standard reports and it was an arduous system to work with daily.

Primary Industries decided to task a consultant, Arthur Crocker, to assess and recommend a new business system for them.

Arthur decided to look at an off the shelf solution which could be easily adapted to meet Primary’s business needs, rather than a bespoke system, which would be too expensive to meet the budgetary guidelines laid down by Primary. Arthur reviewed Access Dimensions, Iris Exchequer and Anagram Encore, before deciding upon Pegasus Opera II.

The Solution

A key element that Primary required in a new business solution included the ability to track individual combinations of purchase and sale contracts such that a ‘management P&L’ could be produced for each combination of purchase and sales contracts, preferably against estimates, and with the ability to deal with foreign currencies. Primary initially thought that they would be unable to meet these requirements with a standard package, and were resigned to tracking this data through another legacy system. However, Arthur realised that a typical job costing module in a standard package had many similar transactional characteristics, and Opera II’s Job Costing module was modified slightly to accommodate virtually all of Primary’s requirements – a far better outcome than Primary had thought possible initially.

On the reporting side, Primary wanted to be able to extract information from their finance system straight into a spreadsheet. XRL for Opera II was designed to do exactly this, saving Primary a huge amount of time. They also required multi-user capability with the ability to allow different employees to enter data remotely and at different times and places, as they have employees in France, all of which was accommodated by Opera II.

Pegasus Opera II ticked all their boxes in terms of the financial and reporting side, and in terms of meeting budgetary constraints. However, Arthur was very impressed with the Document Management suite, and could instantly see significant applications for this within Primary and leading to a ROI with this module alone.

Results

Opera II has transformed the working practises of Primary Industries. Arthur observes: “the technology has improved their financial reports, reduced their costs and improved their productivity. Once their data was cleansed, the whole transfer procedure was very smooth as well.”

To enable Primary to get fast, accurate and flexible reporting, they purchased XRL. This is the eXcel Reporting Layer from Pegasus that seamlessly integrates financial information from the accounts system into Microsoft Excel in a couple of simple steps. There is no re-keying of data, no copy and pasting and no data dropping down the gap. It provides fast, accurate and secure reporting and analysis.

Arthur remarks that “Primary are delighted with XRL. It will do whatever you want, with very little training the users can easily and quickly set up their own reports. XRL has given Primary management reports that they did not have before, allowing them to link to live data so that they are working with up to date information.” Arthur adds that “XRL is really easy to use; getting data into Excel takes seconds. It enables Primary management to have an easy to understand Profit and Loss account, produced by exporting data direct from the financial system, straight into a spreadsheet, with no possibility of error - it is a fantastic reporting tool!”

Primary Industries also purchased the new Document Management module from Pegasus, which was a key element in the decision making process to purchase Opera II. Pegasus Document Management is a complete document imaging and file management solution, handling all key business information: general correspondence, customer purchase orders, supplier documentation including delivery notes, invoices and credit notes, job costing paperwork, such as timesheets and requisitions, payroll & HR documents and many others. Pegasus’ ability to offer this module, fully integrated with the rest of the software, at the same price as any other module, was the key point of difference against competing systems when Primary made their choice.

Arthur continues “With Document Management you can link PDF files to electronic records and only print what you need when you need it, saving paper and storage. Storing, accessing and sharing document information is brilliant. Primary’s overseas staff can easily find and retrieve information that they need access to at any time, which makes them much more productive. It is very useful indeed!”

The Multicurrency functionality was also essential to the organisation, as Primary trade in US dollars and Euros and their overheads are in Pounds Sterling, so multi-currency reporting was crucial to them. This is a standard module in Opera II.

“All Primary’s users of Opera II are positive,” states Arthur. “It is very user friendly, and they understand the structure of the system. Primary can now use non-accounts personnel to input data across the Opera II system and the whole process is much slicker. It is a far more efficient use of resource.”

Arthur concludes: “Pegasus Opera II has enabled accurate management accounts to be run quickly and in a flexible format to suit management requirements, enabling a reduction in overhead costs and, going forward, Primary can see that it will enable them to reduce their cost base further, which is critical in the current economic market. Primary now knows, understands and can manage their cost base better than they could before.”

Arthur’s advice to any company considering purchasing a new system is to “go into the investigation with an open mind. Have a clear understanding of what you require from a new system, identify potential issues early and understand how each software provider will address them, investigate the market thoroughly and contact a good Reseller. Map out a clear migration path with milestones to transfer data from your old system to the new system. Take the time to do this properly and you will only need to do it once.”

Partner Connection

Primary Industries selected Intsys UK Limited, a London based Strategic Partner of Pegasus Software, to work with them on the installation and continued maintenance and support of Opera II.

Arthur remarks that “Intsys are a very straightforward and reliable company to work with. They ensured the whole transition process was very smooth, and that the implementation was just a few days. Their training was excellent too. Before the data was imported into Opera II it had to be cleansed, which was an iterative process between the company and Intsys which took a few weeks, but it was well worth it as import went smoothly and the auditors are very happy with the new system.”

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