User Story: Allport
Multi-dimensional solution delivers Budgeting to Allport
The Client
Founded in 1963 Allport has maintained its original private status and now employs more than 850 staff at 17 domestic locations. Allport has one of the most loyal client and employee bases in the forwarding industry and is the largest independent freight forwarding and logistics organisation in the United Kingdom.
The Challenge
Allport’s business is divided into over 300 cost centres, split over 6 divisions Each Cost centre has a spreadsheet and there in lies the problem.
The management of so many input sheets has led to the model becoming to large for more than a single consolidation; change, once the spreadsheets have been issued becomes impossible and analysis within the model is only achievable by cutting and pasting.
As well as taking control of the main budgeting process Allport want to introduce a process for making their forecasting process easier.
The Approach
Allport selected Infor PM10 to support their budgeting and forecasting processes.
From the outset Glen Nichol, Allport’s Finance Director wanted to ensure that they had control and could do their own development.
They used CFMS’s FastStart approach to prove that Infor PM10 could deliver the required complexity and then CFMS’s consultant worked alongside Glen and Diamond Ismail as they built the model.
Allport purchased a 5 concurrent user server. This was used to support a user community of around 10-15 users, most of whom connected using a CITRIX server.
The target date to complete the budget was within 3 months of implementation having commenced.
The model was developed in four main areas.: Overheads, Payroll, Fixed Assets, Sales and P&L.
A small number of linked cubes enable the users of the model to focus on a particular area confident in the knowledge that all of the results will flow through correctly to the P&L.
The key to user acceptance has been the retention of their existing user interface through the spreadsheet model. Every time the spreadsheet is updated the Alea model is updated and the results at all levels are available.
The Result
The model has been successful and allows any change to be reflected in the consolidated numbers within seconds. The interfaces from the payroll and the Fixed asset systems reduced rekeying of data to a minimum and the end users were comfortable with their spreadsheet front-end. Glen Nichol and Diamond Ismail quickly learnt the tool and this contributed to the product being quickly integrated and accepted within the company.
Glen Nichol concludes that Infor PM10 has saved considerable time in the delivery of the base information to the end users and the building of the budget. Budget changes were very easy and now we are looking forward to integrating the actuals and the forecast into the system.
User Stories:
Infor PM10
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"Infor PM10 has saved considerable time in the delivery of the base information to the end users and the building of the budget. Budget changes were very easy and now we are looking forward to integrating the actuals and the forecast into the system. "
Glen Nichol,
Finance Director,
Allport