De Agostini UK Ltd
Founded in 1901, De Agostini is the world's leading publisher of
partwork magazines. The company's UK division joined this
marketplace in 1970 and has developed its own range of hugely
successful titles, covering subjects as diverse as cake decorating
and dinosaurs. De Agostini UK is now the number one publisher of
partworks to English speaking countries.
Company overview
De Agostini Editore is responsible for coordination and
strategic and operational management, in Italy and world-wide, of
all the Group operations in the publishing sector, which are
organised in businesses areas. De Agostini Editore S.p.A. publishes
in 13 languages and in 30 countries with activities focussed on the
organisation and communication of knowledge.
Choosing & implementing Access
Back in 1994, De Agostini UK began the selection process for a
new accounts system; a
move that was prompted in large part by the flat structure of its
existing software. Because records could not be linked together,
everything pertinent to a given task or activity had to be
contained in a single, isolated field. This made reporting
extremely cumbersome and labour intensive.
During the selection process, Access was evaluated alongside
packages such as Maconomy and SAP. While they all offered broadly
similar levels of functionality, the value for money provided by
Access Dimensions (with an Oracle database) proved decisive.
Installation in the company's London HQ was completed in
December 1994 and Group Accountant, Peter O'Dwyer, was delighted
with the outcome.
"Access provided us with excellent levels of information and
powerful in-built search facilities… while the speed and
efficiency of the overall system was very impressive."
"On our old system it would take a box of paper and a
half a day to run one report. With our Access solution, we can run
the same report in seconds." Peter O'Dwyer
Group Accountant
In fact, the London implementation proved so successful that De
Agostini was soon rolling out Access Accounts to three of its
sister companies, based in Japan, Germany and the Netherlands. In
2001, the combined turnover of these companies was in excess of
£79million.
Improving sales order processing
Companies in the De Agostini group routinely process huge
volumes of data: in the UK, sales ledger
transactions can exceed 20,000 per month, while in Japan this
figure climbs to 60,000. Because it is essential to keep manual
processing to a minimum, many of these orders are received
electronically.
Similarly, the majority of De Agostini's invoices are raised
using a bespoke circulation system. This is integrated with Access
Dimensions and feeds all the relevant data straight into the Access
sales ledger. The SOP module within
Access Dimensions is also used, to raise any ad-hoc invoices that
fall outside the scope of the bespoke system.
SOP with integrated fax software
With fully integrated faxing, De Agostini's credit controllers
are able to issue chase letters directly from the Access Dimensions sales
ledger. "We can pull up overdue invoices and issue reminders to our
customers by fax, complete with our logo at the top of the page and
a scanned signature at the bottom. This saves times and reduces
errors," says Peter.
Improvements to costing
As a multinational organisation De Agostini is always looking
for new markets - and this is where the Access Dimensions Costing
module comes into its own. When a publication proves successful, it
may be sold out to companies in other countries. The Costing module
tracks all the associated expenses and these are recharged to the
local distributor. Access Dimensions allows De Agostini to quickly
identify who needs to be invoiced for which titles, to apply any
mark-up and then raise the invoice, all from within the Costing
module itself.
Electronic invoice tracking
With over 3,500 invoices in an average month spread across six
major departments, keeping on top of the purchase
ledger could prove to be a major challenge. A paper-based
system is totally impractical - finding one particular invoice
could take forever. Prior to implementing Access Dimensions, De
Agostini had already developed the ability to track invoices
electronically. Matching this capability was a pre-requisite for
the Access Dimensions system, as Peter explains. "Without this, we
could never meet the reporting standards set by head office."
He continues, "Access meets this requirement head on. It allows
us to see the value of any outstanding purchase ledger invoices at
any given moment. This is a particular bonus at Year End. Then we
can quickly establish which invoices need approval - and apply
pressure to the relevant heads of department to get them through on
time."
Streamlined reporting
With over 500,000 nominal accounts, 2,000 suppliers, 15,000
purchase ledger invoices and 240,000 sales ledger transactions per
year, the ability to pinpoint precisely what you want to analyse -
and to report on it quickly - is also essential. The reporting
facilities built into Access Dimensions have enabled De Agostini to
do exactly that, reducing the time taken to prepare management
information and making the organisation more profitable.
"On our old system it would take a box of paper and half a day
to run one report. With our Access solution, we can run the same
report in seconds. The drill down and multiple levels of analysis
enable us to pinpoint exactly what we need. And once we have picked
exactly what we want using the sort function, we can even display
it precisely how we want to," says Peter. This processing speed
enables the company to run its management accounts monthly and have
them completed 10 days after month end. Prior to Access Dimensions,
accounts were only prepared quarterly because of the time and
expense involved. This delayed the flow of valuable financial
information.
"Our solution enables us to act a lot quicker," Peter explains.
"In our business, decreasing sales are inevitable. But some titles
will dip faster than expected. Access Dimensions enables
us to identify these trends and cut our print runs quickly. And the
bottom line is that this saves us money."
Peter concludes, "Access Dimensions has certainly made us more
efficient. Eight years ago, when we started using it, I could have
listed a million and one things that were an improvement on our
previous system. Today,we take it for granted."
Looking for a new finance system? Breeze through the RFI process with our quick-start guide. In two parts, we explain what an RFI is, what it should set out to achieve and some pitfalls to avoid. Also includes a downloadable template so that you can get started straightaway.
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