Greentree Financials has helped enhance the financial management of one of New Zealand’s largest public relations consultancy. Acumen Group Limited, has the reputation for delivering excellence in perception management, and now its internal financial reporting is more comprehensive and flexible than ever before.

"The ease of producing financial information and the flexibility of the financial reporting in Excel are two fundamental benefits for us and particularly for decision making in the management team."

The company has national coverage with offices in Wellington and Auckland, and the finance function of both offices is carried out in Wellington.

“The decision to invest in Greentree Financials,” says Mandy Hancock, financial controller for Acumen, “was partly due to our older version of CBA not being Y2K compliant, and partly due to wanting to upgrade our entire information technology platform.

When we discovered that our computers and accounting software were unable to take us into the new millennium, we decided to use the opportunity to develop a superior computer framework that would ultimately help us to serve our clients better.”

Very, very, well researched

The finance team at Acumen carried out extensive research into the various job management and accounting packages available and decided that the Windows-based Greentree system was the one that met all their processing and reporting requirements.

Acumen has purchased the General Ledger,Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Cash Management modules of the system and will shortly move to the Payroll and Fixed Assets modules once they are released.

“On the 1st of April 2001 we had a painless migration from the legacy financials to Greentree,” continues Mandy. “Initially there were a few teething problems as some of the functionality did not work in our beta version, but with the dealer support we received these were ironed out and within four weeks we were able to provide month-end accounts using the new system. Once we got through this first stage, we knew that we had made the best decision with Greentree.”

“With the dealer support we received any issues were ironed out and, within four weeks, we were able to provide month-end accounts using the new system. Once we got through this first stage, we knew that we had made the right decision with Greentree.”

- Mandy Hancock, Financial Controller, Acumen Group

Commenting on the positive impact of Greentree on their processes, Mandy says “Since implementing Greentree, our financial operation has become more cost effective and efficient. With the online application, considerable time has been reduced in processing the data and analysing the accounts.”

Very, very, impressive

An impressive result of the new financial system is that the monthly billing cycle is completed much more quickly,meaning that clients pay more quickly and cash has been generated in the business. In addition, fewer administration and finance staff are needed.

Acumen has found that the month and year-end reporting function is now a process that takes just minutes to complete. All transactions that are entered into Greentree are date stamped with the relevant period and year, so there is no formal period-end aging that needs to be performed.

Very, very easy to use

Mandy comments, “The ease of producing financial information and the flexibility of the financial reporting in Excel are two fundamental benefits for us and particularly for decision making in the management team.”

Providing timely and informative reports helps ensure their organisation is operating effectively and profitably. All standard reports within Greentree have been designed to provide key information in a logical and easy to read format.

The Greentree Report Writer, an integral part of Greentree, provides a complete management reporting tool for creating just about any type of transaction- based report required.

“Month end reports take us only two minutes to complete now. Greentree’s integration with Excel is really fast and I can just ‘whiz’ through the entire ‘blue book’ of financial reports.” says Mandy.

Mandy concludes, “Overall the Greentree product has taken us forward. The support we have received, from our Greentree Business Partner and Greentree International, in response to our requests has been excellent.”

About Acumen Group

Acumen Group Limited is New Zealand’s pre-eminent public relations company specialising in all aspects of communication including strategy, political lobbying, media relations, investor relations, crisis management, internal communications, change management, advertising and marketing communications.

It is the only public relations consultancy with advertising
accreditation in New Zealand.

For more information visit www.acumengroup.co.nz