Cloud accounting software for financial services companies

Apera Asset Management Gets “Turbo-Charged” Accounting from AccountsIQ

Solving the accounting needs of a multi-entity, international business, Rob Shaw, CFO of Apera Asset Management chose to move from Xero to AccountsIQ when consolidation became too cumbersome and international jurisdiction requirements became too complex.  Rob explains, “I was looking for a Xero equivalent but more turbo-charged in its ability to do consolidation, meet the requirements of multiple jurisdictions, and handle foreign exchange.  AccountsIQ seems to tick more boxes than other systems designed for businesses like ours.”

Meeting multi-jurisdictional needs

The fast-growing financial services firm has seven legal entities located across Europe including businesses in London, Paris, Munich and Luxembourg.  Although the accounting processes are simple – the firm has a considerably low volume of accounting entries – the accounting processes have a greater level of complexity due to the structure of the business and its international locations.  Transactions accounted for in Munich must comply with German regulations, likewise for France, the UK and Luxembourg. Rob adds,

Xero worked really well for us for two years when we needed simple, single entity accounting, but it made international accounting difficult.  We didn’t have a need for an Oracle-like system but we had to address the multi-jurisdictional needs.”

Making consolidation simple

“Even though we are a small business, consolidating accounts across quite a few businesses was difficult and time-consuming and I could only see the problem getting worse,” says Rob.

Previously, Apera’s group consolidation was done in spreadsheets: data was exported from various systems and in different currencies, then brought together in Excel. Rob explains, “AccountsIQ’s consolidation software means there is no fiddling around in spreadsheets trying to get things to tie.  Working in Excel was not sustainable; before AccountsIQ, we had instances where we were struggling to get these reports right, sometimes until 2 a.m.”

Expense processing is automated with Expensify

AccountsIQ has been integrated with automated expense capture software Expensify which reduces paper, saves time, improves accuracy and ensures the VAT allocations are correct.  Also integrating with American Express, Expensify allows expenses to be digitally reallocated, and it automates VAT calculations.

Rob explains, “Everyone can photograph, upload and record their own expenses which feeds directly into the accounting system, everything is electronic and it is zero paper.  It is much easier for me to review from anywhere and, although I still want to manually review line-by-line, the admin-heavy part of the process is automated, making it easier for everyone.” Rob concludes,

Although it costs a bit more than Xero, it makes sense in the amount of time it saves us and I have a much more powerful system than Xero.  AccountsIQ meets all our expectations so far and there is still much more in the system for us to use.”

Apera also uses AccountsIQ’s Workflow Approval which automates and speeds up the approval process, also removing the need for paper filing as all documents are stored electronically in the system.  The firm also plans to explore the dashboard reporting and customisable reports further as the system continues to evolve and add further value to the team.

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Freight Investor Services uses AccountsIQ to meet its complex global accounting needs

Freight Investor Services (FIS) is a leading global brokerage specialising in freight and commodities. As an innovator in the commodity derivatives markets, FIS has built an international network of offices and has 10 entities across the US, UK, UAE, India, Singapore and China. As a rapidly growing, international financial services business, they have some complex accounting requirements.  

In 2019 the Group was using different accounting software in different locations including Sun Systems in the UK and UAE. Freight Investor’s Head of Finance, Man Li explains “we needed to standardise our accounting software to make it easier to do group level reporting.”

Man Li compared many different software packages and concluded that AccountsIQ ticked all the boxes.

“Our accounting needs are quite complex and we particularly liked AccountsIQ’s multi-dimension and extensive BI coding structure”.   

Detailed analysis across multi locations, departments, brokers and customers

As a broker, FIS is extremely customer focused and it’s essential they can monitor and track commission, costs and profits by each individual broker and customer.  They currently use a five-dimension accounting structure to get detailed analysis by: employee, broker, office, department and customer (the AccountsIQ platform offers up to six dimensions).

“We can quickly and easily compare the cost of running our back office in each of our locations or how much we spend on each customer,” explains Man Li. “This gives us valuable insight across the business.”

AccountsIQ has been integrated with FIS’ in-house sales system.

“We have lots of trading data and inter-company transactions, so this took some time,” says Man Li, “but it’s working perfectly now, and our sales information is brought straight into AccountsIQ. We’re also in the process of integrating AccountsIQ with the Zoho expenses module, so we can capture and split our customer gifting and entertainment costs very precisely to comply with regulatory requirements.”

The flexibility to ‘slice and dice’ analysis and reporting

The complex nature of their business means FIS currently has over 4,000 BI codes in AccountsIQ.

“The great thing about AccountsIQ is that we have the flexibility to re-think the way we structure the dimension and BI coding over time,” says Man Li. “We can start one way and flex as we go. Right now, we’re working with AccountsIQ’s support team to consolidate and standardise some of the BI codes; it’s a work in progress as we get more familiar with the system.”

AccountsIQ is easy to use with useful features

The FIS finance team is spread across multiple locations around the world but they’re all enjoying using AccountsIQ and finding it easy to collaborate.

“I particularly like the prepayment and accrual functions; you can simply click repeat or auto reverse for recurring journal entries, it’s a great feature.”

A continuous learning and professional development process

FIS have yet to fully use some of the functions available in AccountsIQ such as the new AP Inbox Invoice Automation feature which Man Li is looking forward to using to save lots of processing time.

“We currently have 10 entities on the system and we’re always learning,” she says. “We’re using AIQ Academy with new starters and we get excellent support from our Account Manager, Victoria.  I’ve already recommended AccountsIQ to several people.”

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Find out more about AccountsIQ’s multi company accounting software, and our Business Intelligence capability: accounting, consolidation and management reporting all in one platform.

IFX Payments use AccountsIQ to manage complex multi-entity, multi-currency accounting and support their growth needs

IFX provides global cross-border payments solutions to SMEs and payments services providers. Their finance team of six people use AccountsIQ to manage the complex accounting needs of their four entities (in Dubai, Australia, UK and Poland). They also operate in three different base currencies (£, AUS$ and PLNzl).

IFX Group Finance Director, Steve Allen.

“We were using Sage 50,” says IFX Group Finance Director, Steve Allen. “But it wasn’t Cloud-based. Even before the pandemic, our finance team was split across three office locations, so we needed a system where we could work together seamlessly.”

Steve also wanted a more flexible finance system.

“With AccountsIQ, if I see something’s wrong in the P&L, I can drill down to the transaction level (even to view an actual invoice) and change it there and then,” he says. “That makes my life so much easier.”

IFX were also keen to ensure they had effective PO workflows in place. The company was growing at a phenomenal rate. Maintaining visibility and keeping control of costs across the business were key priorities for the finance team.

“The year before last we experienced 110% growth,” Steve explains. “We could not have done that without AccountsIQ. If we were still on Sage 50, we would have collapsed or at the very least we would have needed a much bigger finance team.”

Management reporting for multiple stakeholders

The IFX finance team also needs to meet the demand for management reports from across the business, and from their external stakeholders.

“Different users require different information,” explains Steve. “But AccountsIQ has multi-dimensional reporting and analysis capabilities. That enables us to flip the data for different stakeholders using just one set of coding structures.”

That means IFX can produce the compliance data demanded by banks and the FCA quickly and easily. But they can also deliver granular, timely and accurate commercial reports for their own board.

“We can report by department, cost type and even by individual salesperson,” says Steve. “With AccountsIQ we can track the performance and contribution of every IFX salesperson. We treat them like another profit centre for reporting purposes.”

Easy for new team members to use

IFX have found that new team members can train themselves to use AccountsIQ simply by using the learning resources in AIQ Academy.

“One of the things I always rave about with AccountsIQ is the user experience,” says Steve. “It’s so easy to use; it’s fantastic.”

A finance system to support growth

“With AccountsIQ, we really feel like we’re on the right platform to support our future growth,” concludes Steve. “We can integrate other tech with it as and when we need to. For example, right now we’ve decided to use AutoEntry; that integrates seamlessly with AccountsIQ.”“Starter systems like Sage and Xero don’t really meet the needs of a complex business. AccountsIQ is a proper accounting package. It’s Cloud-based, user-friendly and meets all the accounting needs of an international business like IFX.”

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About IFX

Founded in 2005, IFX Payments has grown to become a leading global foreign exchange, payment and financial technology provider. Headquartered in London, with offices around the world, we’re positioned to be a significant participant in the new banking paradigm delivering advanced payment, treasury and financial management solutions. We replace operational inefficiency with streamlined processes and replace uncertainty with control.