For business management solutions email us or call 020 3004 4600

Case Study: How a Dynamics GP solution from Advantage helped transform the way DeaconCapital worked

Introduction

When leading independent financial services group – DeaconCapital Asset Management Group LLP made the decision to find a scalable business management solution, they picked up the phone and called Microsoft, who put them in touch with us.

Background

DeaconCapital Asset Management LLP is part of the DeaconCapital Group, which focuses on discretionary asset management and wealth management consulting for high net worth families and institutions.

Adam Sales, Financial Controller explains: “We are an independent asset management organisation which means that we are able to advise our customers on the most suitable investment management service for them, without any conflict of interest”.

Being an organisation in the asset fund management sector, DeaconCapital is governed by FSA regulations, which ensures that the organisation adheres to the latest compliance so that their clients are always protected. Sales comments: “We have an agreement in place with our clients that outlines the standard agreement that we follow to ensure that they are protected”.

The challenges they faced

When the sister company DeaconCapital Limited, based in Dubai outsourced its finance function to a local provider, which used Sage, DeaconCapital Asset Management Group received their financial data on a quarterly basis.

Adam Sales comments: “Because we outsourced the finance function, we experienced huge time delays of up to a month to receive financial data. As you can imagine, we were unable to conduct forecasting or make strategic business decisions because of the delay in receiving the data. We couldn’t even conduct monthly forecasting, which was preventing us from growing the
business'.

Adam continues: “When we did receive the financial data, we weren’t able to quickly export the data into Microsoft Excel because of the incumbent solution, so we couldn’t easily conduct meaningful analysis”. It was this frustration and lack of timely information which spurred Adam on to look for an alternative in house business management solution for the business.

The solution

With the decision made to change their business management solution, Adam reviewed a number of solutions which included Sun Systems, Access, Sage, NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics GP Express.

Adam says: “We knew that as a growing business, we would need a solution that was scalable to grow as the business grows and that would be cost effective for us now, so that we could achieve a good return on investment in the immediate future”.

The Microsoft Dynamics GP Express solution is a unique solution, designed by Advantage to provide small to medium sized organisations with a cost effective and scalable business management solution based upon the established Microsoft Dynamics GP solution.

The solution has given DeaconCapital Asset Management an opportunity to:

  • Quickly and effectively close down month end to achieve significant time savings.
  • Review trends in the business to understand how to plan and forecast for the future.
  • Extract and produce comprehensive management reports on a regular basis to support the business.

The benefits

Since the Advantage implementation of Microsoft Dynamics GP Express, DeaconCapital Asset Management has achieved immediate time savings.

Adam comments: “We are no longer reliant on waiting for data to arrive on a quarterly basis, we are now able to look at how we can better support the business. The solution has greatly improved our day to day business processes, which are now far more automated. We are now able to focus on key business critical tasks”.

These key business critical tasks include the following:

  • Day to day financial tasks such budgeting and forecasting can now be conducted in house which has resulted in significant efficiency savings.
  • Greater insight into financial data through rich reporting tools, which has enabled the business to make key strategic decisions.

As the business continues to grow, Microsoft Dynamics continues to support the growth of the business, with new users quickly adapting to the solution.