FinancialForce, a leading customer-centric ERP and PSA cloud vendor built on the Salesforce Platform, announced that Methods, a leading digital transformation partner for the UK public sector, has seen a dramatic improvement in business performance and customer service since going live with FinancialForce ERP.
Methods experienced explosive growth over four years and sought to continue its momentum by enhancing financial and operational business management while easily integrating with Salesforce. As a result, Methods selected FinancialForce ERP, covering Financial Management and Professional Services Automation (PSA), to redesign back office operations.
“We selected FinancialForce as it met all of our requirements to digitally transform our financial and operational aspect, and we were already using the Salesforce Platform,” commented Stephen Horrocks, CFO at Methods. “The pace we saw results exceeded our expectations and it truly has changed the way we run our business and improved performance significantly. It has enabled us to focus further on strategy and business growth as well as cope with the rapid change in business models and adapt quickly in the new services economy. We have been able to achieve this with virtually no custom development.”
“Methods is a perfect example of demonstrating the power of a platform-led approach,” added James Stirk, VP and GM EMEA, FinancialForce. “It was looking for scalability, process automation, improvements in efficient, financial and operational management and to refocus resources from administrative to a more considerable value-add. We’re proud to have implemented this solution in six months and helped Methods transform to drive profit as it continues rapid growth.”
The result is informed changes in business processes which have driven profit. The transformation was essential to the health of the company. The ability to analyse trusted data quickly and in easily digestible formats continues to inform how Methods runs its business today and how it ensures profit margins are maximised going forwards.
Methods experienced significant benefits across its entire business since implementing FinancialForce ERP, including improved insights around P&L, project profitability, staff performance, and utilization, resulting in a two-week reduction in the billing cycle and 40% reduction in back office costs.
Finance Function Benefits: a change to 95% automation in the finance function, from timesheet to accounting entries; first pain free audit in five years; DSO (debtor days) reduced by fourteen days; improvement of low margins; production of management accounts now available within five days, rather than three weeks, of month end enabling more accurate business decisions to drive growth; enhanced strategic impact of finance team, 50% of back office staff now moved to front office to add value to the business.
Project Management Benefits: reduction in basic project administration by 70%; resource allocation changes improved utilisation 50-80%; 90% reduction of timesheet errors and duplicates completely eliminated; speedy provision of revenue forecasts based on project resources schedules.
Methods is using this project implementation to set a benchmark for future projects and will continue to work with a one-platform approach in partnership with FinancialForce and Salesforce to help ensure it continues to thrive.