How AccountsIQ transforms businesses through automation

Developments in technology are beginning to change the way we work. Integrating your accounting system with useful technology such as optical character recognition, CRM software, expense management tools and management information systems can significantly streamline business processes and bring efficiencies that will improve life for everyone. By bringing together best-of-breed software and uniting them in one centralised system, you can automate more processes and become more joined-up in your approach to business.

AccountsIQ’s cloud-based accounting software is naturally suited to integrate with other software. Born in the cloud, it has an open API that makes partnerships easy to forge, and has numerous integration partners with leading software companies such as Salesforce CRM, TransferMate Global Payments and Kefron AP among others.

With all your systems integrated together, you can experience a truly efficient and streamlined business that can fully focus its resources on making great decisions to move forward and grow.

AccountsIQ transforms Hibernia Reit’s group accounting

One such client is Irish real-estate investment trust Hibernia Reit plc, who chose AccountsIQ to handle complex group accounting and financial management across all its subsidiaries. Financial controller Nicholas Treanor relies on AccountsIQ’s cloud accounting software for simplifying complex consolidation procedures; integrating information from Hibernia’s property management system Landmark and integrating with Kefron’s automated accounts payable solution, providing insightful management reports and dashboards.

“AccountsIQ allows us to allocate transactions to each of the properties within our portfolio [32 in March 2018]. We can look at the P&L for any property due to the way the accounting codes framework was designed for us during implementation,” Treanor said.

“Combined with AccountsIQ’s capability of simplifying our consolidation process, the system is surprisingly sophisticated for an SaaS product. Taking into account all of this functionality, AccountsIQ is extremely competitive from a pricing perspective.”

Reporting and compliance

Hibernia is required to produce a range of external reports for its investors, and AccountsIQ assists in meeting these reporting requirements. The business is benchmarked against the IPD Ireland real estate index against which the portfolio’s annual returns are benchmarked, and the use of extended business analysis reporting is of great assistance when reporting on a quarterly basis. Hibernia Reit is also regulated by the Central Bank, which requires specific monthly reports with which AccountsIQ also provides assistance.

Enhanced financial control

Supporting best practice in financial control, AccountsIQ produces extended business analysis reports which are unique to Hibernia’s management’s needs. Internal reports are generated and visualised in custom-designed dashboards which provide actionable information relating to the performance of particular aspects of the portfolio.

One dashboard shows capital expenditure, allowing Hibernia to get a sense of how much is spent against each project and how much is remaining. A second dashboard presents the credit control position and summarises the payment activity of tenants – key metrics for financial management. AccountsIQ’s dashboard replaces the former debtors’ report but provides much more in terms of insight and payment trends.

A scalable solution for consolidation

As a plc, Hibernia Reit breaks out its P&L and total assets by business segment as required by IFRS. AccountsIQ allows the finance team to allocate properties to ‘segments’ within the coding framework. For Hibernia Reit, these segments include office assets, residential assets and industrial assets. A property code is created and allocated to a segment in order that P&Ls, for example, can be produced by segment.

“The structure of the coding framework in AccountsIQ is extremely flexible and saves us so much time when preparing our external financial reports,” said Treanor. “We have added seven or eight entities since implementing AccountsIQ and we simply replicate the original model for each new subsidiary. It is a very uncomplicated approach and a time-saving solution for group companies.”

Synching with other systems for further efficiency

AccountsIQ is integrated with two other business systems in use at Hibernia Reit – accounts payable automation system Kefron AP and a property management database called Landmark.

“From an efficiency and a control perspective, these integrations save us so much time and reduce the risk of human error,” said Treanor. “AccountsIQ’s ability to integrate with other cloud or non-cloud business systems has been very useful to us.”

AccountsIQ also synchs batch payments with Hibernia Reit’s online banking, further reducing duplication of work.

“Overall, the processing time which AccountsIQ saves us in data entry from other business systems, reconciliation, and automated invoice processing constitutes about a day a week,” said Treanor.

“This allows us to spend more time on the more ‘value-add’ aspects of the Finance function, analysing and presenting information on which the senior management team can make more informed decisions.”

Key benefits

Streamlined processes

Huge time savings

Integration with Landmark and Kefron AP systems

Customised dashboards to provide actionable insight

Easy consolidation and detailed reporting of individual assets

About AccountsIQ

AccountsIQ’s award-winning financial management and consolidation software simplifies how finance functions capture, process and report the results of multiple location businesses. More than 4,000 businesses in 85 countries enjoy 24/7 access to top-level financial management functionality, smart collaboration tools and automated inter-company and multi-currency processing, delivering simple and accurate consolidated results and a superior level of business insights.

AccountsIQ won the Enterprise Accounting Software of the Year award for the second year running at the recent UK Accounting Excellence Awards and has been ranked in the top half of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 high-growth index for the past four years.

WEBINAR: Power Up your Finance Function with Automated Technology

When: Wednesday, November 20, at 12 noon

The webinar covers:

Overview of AccountsIQ cloud accounting and consolidation software

How Kefron AP integration can help reduce cost and improve efficiency

Why organisations are investing in cloud accounting and AP automation software

Book your place: https://accountsiq.com/webinars/power-up-your-finance-function-automated-technology/

To find out more call AccountsIQ on 01-7074490