Acumatica Case Study: Caystone Solutions
Business Services Company Saves approx. 80% of Projected Deployment Costs with Acumatica
Independent family office and corporate services company, providing customized services including incorporation, accounting, compliance, and back office functions.
Though small, the ambitions of Caystone Solutions Ltd. (pronounced “key-stone”) are big. The company’s goal is to provide entrepreneurs and individuals around the globe with a variety of services, including working with government and regulatory agencies on clients’ behalf; assisting with external communications and customer relationship management; improving sales efficiencies; and timely reporting of clients’ managed investments.
Key Results:
Saved approximately 80 percent of projected ERP deployment costs
Flexibility to defer customization to be implemented later based on needs and budget
Saving 6-8 hours per client per quarter by giving clients web-based access to their accounting data
Reduced potential for errors and the need for manual entries, compared to working with Microsoft Excel
Add new users without additional licensing costs
The ability to easily obtain updated, detailed client reporting
Situation
To realize its ambitions, Caystone must operate with extraordinary efficiency and be able to easily manage growth. Caystone needed an accounting system capable of supporting its own business requirements as well as its clients’. The system needed to be customizable and support multiple currencies and unlimited users. What’s more, the system needed to provide both Caystone and its clients anytime, anywhere access from any web browser. Caystone required a system that wouldn’t necessitate a big—and costly—hardware infrastructure. And Bahamas-based Caystone needed the comfort of knowing its client data was stored locally.
At its launch in August 2012, Caystone had no accounting system in place. Meanwhile, Caystone relied on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track everything related to its business, such as start-up costs. But such manual reporting was tedious and prone to error.
Solution
When looking for a software platform to handle internal accounting, client investment tracking, and more, Caystone considered solutions from such vendors as Oracle, Peachtree Software, and Advent Software in addition to Acumatica. Desaree Romer, Caystone’s manager of client and corporate accounting, created an Excel spreadsheet that provided a side-by-side comparison of every considered platform’s features and costs. Acumatica quickly emerged the clear winner for the following reasons:
- Acumatica’s Currency Management Module supports multiple currencies, which was essential to Caystone’s goal of growing its international clientele.
- Acumatica’s ease of use let Caystone staff test and learn system mostly on own, reducing implementation costs.
- Ability to add on other application suites later and also more users without additional costs.
- Customization options allow Caystone to easily tailor reports to fit specific client and partner needs.
- Acumatica’s perpetual software license enabled Caystone to store client data on a Bahamas-based hosting provider’s servers, an important requirement for many of their clients.
Results
Because Acumatica is easy to use, and Caystone needed to minimize deployment costs, Caystone took a hands-on role in the software’s deployment. Caystone employees handled the system testing and primarily trained themselves on Acumatica by reading the user manual. Acumatica’s user-friendly interface and browser-based access is another important feature for Caystone, as it gives its clients immediate, easy access to their own data and reporting.
This benefits clients who want the reassurance of seeing their data themselves. And it benefits Caystone staff by reducing time-consuming client meetings and inquiries. Offering clients web-based access will play an even more important role going forward, as Caystone expands
its investment portfolio management business.
Caystone staff also set up sub-accounts in Acumatica to generate detailed reporting. For example, Caystone can create a report that pulls data from Acumatica’s General Ledger (GL), Accounts Payable, and Accounts Receivable modules. A report can use data from subaccounts to show a client which regions of their country generate the most revenues, which in turn helps the client know where to focus efforts. Acumatica’s ability to deliver detailed reporting to Caystone clients is a big differentiator for the company.
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