Heads Employment Services

“Since 1999, we have experienced considerable growth – achieving the staggering rate of 177% over three years. This would have been extremely hard to deal with, had we not had such a good accounts system. The flexibility shown by Access Accounts has definitely helped to fuel our progress.”

In 1999, with support for its Pro-Fit Accounts system being withdrawn, Heads Employment Services began looking for an alternative accounting package. The company undertook a thorough review of its requirements. . . and decided that any new software would need to integrate with its existing Aztech Temps for Windows payroll and invoicing system.

Three packages were evaluated: Sage, Pegasus Opera and Access Horizons. “I must admit that I was really disappointed in Sage. It certainly didn’t offer what you would expect from such a high profile package,” says Christine Gorton, Financial Director.

Access Horizons was chosen, both for its powerful integration tools and the scope (and flexibility) of its management reporting.
h3. Integrated Systems – Easy Reporting and Informed Decision Making

Temps for Windows is a combined payroll and client invoicing system, designed specifically for temporary staff recruitment and placement. This is why integration with the core accounts was seen as a necessity.

The desired level of integration was achieved using Transaction Broker. On a weekly basis, invoices are automatically imported into the Access Sales Ledger. No re-keying is required.

Gathering data into one central location – the accounts – has greatly improved the decision-making process. Key business information, including consolidated monthly management reports, can now be produced with far greater ease. “Our team leaders need information quickly,” says Christine. “With Access I can pull off detailed, itemised reports, in seconds. I do this on a daily basis, giving our staff all the information they need to improve performance.”

Multi-company Accounting

Heads Employment Services acts as an administrative centre, processing business costs for a group of three companies. Two members of the group are Recruitment firms (Heads Recruitment Ltd and Heads Engineering), while the third is an engineering firm (Levertech Engineering Services).

Levertech was added to the group after Horizons was installed. It brought with it some complex cost accounting requirements, to go alongside the existing need for multi-company accounting.

Prior to using Access, Levertech recorded its costs by setting up individual spreadsheets for each project. Christine was aware that this practice could lead to significant discrepancies and decided to introduce the Access Costing system.

Levertech added the new Costing module without having to replace, update or reconfigure any of its existing software. Horizons simply grew to accommodate this diversification of the Group’s portfolio.

Now, actual project costs are posted against each individual job. This enables the company to monitor the progress of every project and helps to safeguard profitability.

Although Access Costing was only implemented recently, the Group is already looking to expand its use of the module, to include estimating. The goal is to compare estimates against actuals for each job, and to learn from any discrepancies. “The module’s estimating facilities will enable us to get a better handle on project costs and to improve our estimating on future jobs,” explains Christine. “It will also enable us to track our work in progress, with respect to both costs and estimates.”

Improved Credit Control Processes

Prior to Access Accounts, Heads Employment did not have a dedicated system for credit control. Information was either held “in someone’s head” or within the notes area of the very basic Sales Ledger provided by Temps for Windows. The company tried to utilise Outlook, but struggled to make it work.

Now, with the integrated system, invoice details are held within the Access Sales Ledger. Every authorised member of staff can see this account information, which includes a full debtors ledger at transaction level.

Once again, holding information in a single database helps to make debt chasing organised and efficient, as Christine notes. “Since implementing Access credit control, in January 2001, we have known precisely who needed contacting. . . and when. As a result, the Group has been cash positive for a substantial length of time.”

Cost Centre Reporting

On a regular basis, Christine produces P&L reports by cost centre. The relevant information is then distributed across nine business teams. In this way, the company retains a firm grip on the performance of each area of its business.

To streamline the preparation of these reports, Christine takes advantage of the flexibility of the Access Nominal ledger: codes have been set up to include both department names and expense types. Using this highly structured chart of accounts, the management team can easily pinpoint the items it wants to report on and analyse, across hundreds of nominal codes.

“This kind of flexibility is critical for a growing company,” says Christine. “We can simply add new codes as we go along, without affecting our existing cost structure set-up. Indeed, the system has never restricted us in any way.”

Flexibility for a Fast Growing Business

Heads Recruitment recently came 12th in a list of fast growing businesses, as compiled by Real Business magazine (February 2003).

The move to Access Accounts and the introduction of detailed cost centre reporting has helped them to achieve this level of success. Christine Gorton concludes, “Since 1999, we have experienced considerable growth – achieving the staggering rate of 177% over three years. This would have been extremely hard to deal with, had we not had such a good accounts system. The flexibility shown by Access Accounts has definitely helped to fuel our progress.”