Furniture supplier Dovetail uses business and accounting software to reduce reporting timescales by 80%

Dovetail Contract Furniture Ltd, a service-based supplier of office furniture, has completed an order valued in the region of £40,000 with Whitegate Computing Ltd for business and accounting software, Exchequer from IRIS Enterprise Software.

 

Exchequer was chosen for its flexible job costing module and comprehensive OLE report writing functionality. It replaces a software system put in place by Dovetail's sister company, part of WPP Group.

 

The versatility of the OLE Report Writer module is bringing significant benefits to Dovetail, which it is using to provide a seamless link between Microsoft Excel and the financial management data held within Exchequer. This enables Dovetail to integrate information with ease from one database to another, providing access to real live data at any given time, which greatly reduces the need for manual intervention that is time consuming and prone to errors.

 

The job costing module combined with Exchequer's reporting capabilities is enabling Dovetail to track the status and profitability of individual jobs. Bruce Taylor, Financial Director at Dovetail, explains, "Our business information is now far more transparent as we are able to spot mistakes quickly, address them and learn from them to improve our processes and become more efficient. Day-to-day financial management is far easier as we can very easily allocate incoming invoices to jobs as soon as they are received and run reports to check the status of jobs, such as when the customer is due to be invoiced, whilst alerting us if any job margins have slipped."

 

He continues, "The reports we have access to now are at least three times more relevant and valid than what we had before, but it only takes half of the time to produce them. Overall, the key business information we draw from the system only takes about 20% of the time it used to take via the old software as the information is now available at my fingers tips. We therefore have far greater control of the business as a result of improved reporting."

 

To deliver further efficiencies in the organisation, Dovetail will also be looking to take advantage of Exchequer's Paperless module and the time sheets within the Job Costing module. The paperless module will enable the finance department to send out documents and reports, such as orders, invoices and statements, in a secure format, by fax or email, saving a considerable amount of time and money on stationery, postage and administration, while use of the time sheets will enable better project planning and improved cost control in project management.