Kings Secure Technologies is a national business with international capabilities specialising in the design and engineering of solutions for risk mitigation for the security and fire sectors. Kings needed to replace its existing spreadsheet system with a more flexible financial reporting tool to support future growth.

“As a complex group with a consolidation, we needed a reliable reporting tool that would deliver a degree of flexibility and dynamism to change our reporting structure,” says Neil Cossey, Chief Financial Officer, Kings Secure Technologies.

All the members of the Kings executive team have a PLC background and have been used to having access to real-time granular financial information. It was agreed that a more agile and flexible reporting solution was required to replace the spreadsheet process and that would give the finance team the ability to report the numbers in a variety of different ways. Cloud CFO was identified during a chance conversation with a colleague and immediately impressed both Neil and the Executive team. “Everyone was sold on its simplicity and its resilience,” adds Neil.

Cloud CFO is an affordable online spreadsheet add-on that automates consolidation, financial reporting and forecasting. It requires no change in business processes and allows businesses such as Kings, that want to preserve their existing spreadsheets, to guarantee their data quality.  All formulae and rules are preserved in a powerful Cloud database and then executed in such a way as to ensure data integrity.

Having Cloud CFO in-house is set to confer tremendous flexibility and will mean that all the members of the finance team have immediate and shared visibility of the business’s figures. One of Neil’s aims is to get away from the rigidity of the way the information has been presented up until now, and Cloud CFO will allow the finance team to deliver consistent and accurate reporting as soon as the trial balance has been loaded.

Cloud CFO’s ability to forecast with ease also featured heavily in the decision process. Neil says, “Historically, all our forecasting has been done on several spreadsheets. We are now at a stage as a business when we need to be able to look closely at that data, so we can make business decisions accordingly.”

Neil sees one of the real advantages of deploying Cloud CFO is that he and his team will have access to their own tool set. This means that if anything needs changing, they are able to do it themselves without having to call in expensive contractors.

As part of the implementation process, the Synapse team has recreated the original reporting pack adopted by Kings and all of last year’s data has been loaded into Cloud CFO. The plan is to run the first month’s reporting using the existing spreadsheet system and replicate it on Cloud CFO to ensure they match.

“Implementing the Cloud CFO reporting tool is very exciting, and we are looking forward to being able to use it to produce our statutory accounts in as little as twenty-four hours after the end of month twelve,” comments Neil.

“This will be a game-changer for us and for all other companies who are faced with a consolidation.” A new statutory accounts production solution with full iXBRL tagging is to be launched with a new version of Cloud CFO shortly.

Neil’s advice to others is to “Take a look at Cloud CFO – the solution sells itself. The Synapse team is so enthusiastic,” he adds and “Nothing is too much trouble. Articulate the particular issues your company faces, and the team will provide working examples of how they can be solved.”

Kings is looking forward to a simplified and quicker consolidation and reporting process for the group in 2019 thanks to Cloud CFO.