Menzies links Advance to Access Dimensions

The finance team at top 30 accountancy firm Menzies claims to have saved five working days a month by integrating its APS Advance Practice Management system with an Access Dimensions accounting system.

The software link-up was the result of growing frustrations with the firm’s previous enterprise resource planning system. Fee earners at Menzies previously entered timesheets and personal expenses  into Advance PM, and drew on disbursements and purchase ledger transactions recorded on a separate enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to raise client invoices.

Menzies finance director David Gibbons described the frustrations that resulted: “We needed to extract and manually re-enter the data from the ERP system into Advance PM to enable us to generate invoices, as well as to re-key sales ledger receipts.

“This was a time consuming process in our old ERP solution, with the sales ledger cash alone taking three days per month to complete. The potential to introduce errors slowed down the time it took to invoice clients and ultimately to receive payment.”

The ERP software was satisfactory for day-to-day basic accounting but cumbersome when it came to modifying business processes or adding new client accounts, he added.

The old system had become increasingly unstable as customisations were added, and as maintenance costs grew, Menzies decided to replace it. Advance developer APS (Advanced Professional Solutions) recommended Access Dimensions and referred Menzies to reseller dhc.

The dhc team had experience of linking the two systems and convinced Menzies of the advantages of integration. Once the Menzies partners gave the go-ahead, dhc worked on site for four days to complete the project: four days for implementation and four for staff training.

With the link in place, information entered into one system is instantly duplicated in the other,so fee earners’ billable activity, related expenses and disbursements entered via Advance are immediately available within Access Dimensions to the finance department.

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