Turning data into information
Achilles Heel Case Study Implementing an effective retail solution using Sage 50 Accounts & Sage POS.
Xact is a national HR Management, Employment Law, Health & Safety and Food Safety Consultancy set up by current Managing Director, Maurice Hammond, to help businesses and organisations manage their Human Resource, Health & Safety and Food Safety functions better. The company has expertise in working with verticals such as Pharmacies and golf clubs.
The company has grown rapidly over the last 5 years and recently purchased new premises to accommodate the growing staff base – the acquisition of another Employment Law firm has also bolstered the staff and customer base leading to greater growth in turnover and profit.
The problems that Xact were experiencing related to each department using different systems. Health and Safety used a series of spreadsheets which were manually updated with details of clients, their current levels of service, contract renewal dates and on site visit schedules. HR and Employment Law used a combination of an old bespoke contacts database, spreadsheets and Word documents to manage their client details and the interactions they had with them. The sales and marketing teams worked completely from spreadsheets and MS Outlook, while the accounts department used Sage Instant Accounts for invoicing which had no link to any of the other systems.
The fact that all the above data was managed separately meant that major time was being wasted on entering the same information in multiple systems and there was no overall view of the current situation with existing and potential clients from a sales, customer service or financial point of view.
As more clients came on board and more staff members were involved in each process it became increasingly difficult to manage this information and all the tasks involved for each staff member. With the business growing at a high rate the company realised the need to bring all the data and processes used by each business unit into one central system.
Xact began looking for a company that could provide a business management software solution that could match the specific requirements of their business. After careful consideration, they decided that Eureka Solutions and Sage CRM would best be able to meet their needs.
The ability to customise the system to fit the processes used by all the relevant departments – Health and Safety, HR/Employment law and Sales and Marketing – along with the the software being able to integrate with Sage 200 Financials were the main factors in choosing Sage CRM. All existing data was also able to be migrated to the new system.
Eureka Solutions and Sage CRM were able to provide a solution to integrate and manage all departments. For example, the sales team can manage and analyse their leads and opportunities using the software’s sales pipeline.
One major issue that the HR team previously had was that all advice and communications were stored in a continuous list and could not be reported on or grouped by specific incidents or events, for example a particular disciplinary or redundancy issue.
To resolve this, Eureka Solutions customised the customer service management features of Sage CRM to manage the advice Xact give to their clients through their HR helpline. This functionality allows the users to create a ‘Case’ file for each particular issue that has to be dealt with. These can be categorised by issue type, the employee it involves and the stage the issue is currently at. All communications between the HR team and their clients such as phone calls and emails can be recorded in Sage CRM and linked to a particular incident. This provides excellent visibility and reporting on each incident and the subsequent communications and advice given.
Eureka Solutions were also able to customise a process to manage and automate the contract renewal process. The Health and Safety Team can now effectively manage the systems that are in place at each client’s site. Contract renewal dates and costs are stored and managed in the database. The customisation provides a visit schedule for the technical team based on the start date of a contract. This plans out the date of each on-site visit or review that is required as part of the client’s contract and saves the user from having to enter each date manually.
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