Saffron Zest Boosts Remote Accounting Efficiency at Holroyd Howe

Having been ranked 24th in Europe’s top 500 job-creating companies in 2005, and listed as one of the Sunday Times’ ‘100 Best Companies to work for’ in 2006, Holroyd Howe has deservedly earned its reputation for looking after staff and managing growth well.

As part of its shrewd growth management strategy, Holroyd Howe, which is now regarded as one of the UK’s leading independent contract caterers, has established a cost-effective alternative to investing in expensive IT software to record management information.

By adopting Saffron from Fretwell-Downing Hospitality (FDH) and integrating it with the company’s core accounting system, Holroyd Howe has managed to halve the time it takes to record the management information from each of its sites.

In a de-centralised business where it is important to maintain efficient control of each operating contract, Holroyd Howe recognised improvements could be made to the system of recording information such as supplier invoices, purchases and cash sales.

A few years ago each catering manager would have recorded the information manually on a spreadsheet, sent this through to the head office where the data was checked and keyed in, before being entered manually into the main accounting system.

However with continuing growth, Holroyd Howe, had reached the stage where it needed to invest in new IT infrastructure to help streamline the reporting and accounting procedure.

Microsoft Navision was installed as the core financial system. The company then opted for Saffron to record the management information, having recognised the benefits of using an internet-based system that was cost effective and easy to use, rather than having to invest in, and install, an expensive software program.

Saffron is hosted centrally by FDH and operates on a software licensing structure, based on ‘cost per site’, with Holroyd Howe having recently increased the number of licenses to 135.

As Rick Holroyd, joint managing director at Holroyd Howe comments: “In-line with expansion in the number of contracts we now operate, we have recently acquired an additional 30 licenses for Saffron. The system is powerful, scaleable according to the growth rate of the business, and has helped us avoid hitting the IT pain barrier that many expanding firms face. ”

Saffron is password-protected with specific contracts only being accessed by the relevant catering manager and operating team in conjunction with the regional management team and head office personnel.

Holroyd Howe’s catering managers now key in the relevant accounting data, which is then checked by the operating manager and head office staff before being simply uploaded electronically into the accounts system.

In this way, the time taken to input the information has been halved, and the business has been able to grow without expanding the head office administration team to the same extent that the manual system would have required.

The other significant knock-on benefit is that client-invoicing routines can be speeded up, ensuring tight cash flow control – essential in any cash based operation such as contract catering.

Roy McGregor, Holroyd Howe’s financial director explains: “As well as cutting out any duplication of work, we can now access real-time information on food and disposables so there are no surprises at month-end. Importantly, we are now freed up to spend more time analysing the figures, giving us much greater control at site level which is a benefit to our clients.

“FDH has appreciated exactly what we wanted to achieve and has provided us with the solution, especially as our staff have found Saffron very straightforward to use. As we are a de-centralised business with greater numbers of staff working remotely, it is easier for us to provide catering managers with a password than installing software onto each PC or laptop.”

Charles Mobbs, FDH’s managing director comments: “FDH tailored the Saffron module to provide an effective interface with Navision, which has worked extremely well in the two years that Holroyd Howe has been using the system.

“Backed by the support and training programme that has been implemented at head office and cascaded down to catering managers, Saffron is proving its worth as a user-friendly support system.”

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