When desktop solutions like Sage or Quickbooks, plus assorted ‘bolt-on’ applications, or spreadsheets are no longer man for the job, and a full-blown ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system such as SAP starts at tens-of-thousands of pounds, where do you go for a reliable, cost effective, business solution?
That was the dilemma facing accountant, Paul Driscoll, in 2005 when helping a client business which was looking to streamline its processes. “Many small businesses have the same problems calculating their material requirements, or planning their production, as large businesses, but not the reserves of time and funds required to invest in the large MRP (Material Requirements Planning) or ERP software solutions designed to meet such problems,” Paul noted.
Paul is no stranger to ERP systems having implemented several for clients over the last twenty years. “The problem is that these come with a hefty price tag; several have cost over a quarter-of-a-million pounds to implement, with tens-of-thousands per year thereafter in license and support fees, and expensive servers and networks to run them on” he said, “and with even the ‘entry-level’ systems costing thirty-to-fifty thousand, they are well beyond the wallet of most of my clients.”
But Paul’s experience pre-dates these implementations since as Finance Director for a group of Unilever subsidiaries in Gloucestershire in the late 1980’s, Paul worked with Dr. John Ellis on the early days of just such a system, which John went on to develop into the highly regarded Efacs ERP system, so he had a very good understanding of how these systems work, and seriously started to consider designing and writing an application specifically for small businesses.
“What I lacked was the technical ability to write such an application from scratch, so I discussed the idea with a client which did have those skills, and after some discussion and market research, we decided that we should get together and develop an application that would fill the gap in the market place,” Paul explained, “and with the others involved being non-accountants, there was never any chance of coming up with something that required the user to understand the difference between debits and credits!”
To test the underlying development software, the team incorporated as Hudman Limited, and launched ShoppingPlanner just before Christmas 2005. Shopping Planner is a free application (currently over 5,000 registered members/ users and 12,000+ recipes) which enables a member to set up their own recipes including ingredients, and their personal meal plan for a period of time (week, month, etc.) and then generate a shopping list of ingredients, consolidating requirements of the same ingredients, converting different units of measure into a common measure, and working out latest appropriate best before dates etc..
“We know from feedback that in addition to the general population, ShoppingPlanner is used by nutritionists both in private practice and the NHS as a tool for helping plan diets for their clients, and in particular to support economically disadvantaged clients in making low cost healthy meal choices,” Paul added.
Then in November 2009, the team launched Central Accounting which aims to give smaller businesses the same potential to improve productivity, operating efficiencies, and therefore competitiveness, as the very best large ERP applications, but at a very affordable price.
Central Accounting has been designed with the user in mind in order to get the business up and running as quickly as possible and with a minimum of technical accounting (financial transactions are created in the background in ‘real time’) or IT knowledge; it does not require any specialist software to be installed on PCs or workstations, nor any specialist in-house IT administration, servers, or networks, making it ideal for even the smallest businesses
“Central Accounting is a good example of ‘cloud computing‘ – it just requires a PC or Mac with an appropriate Internet browser such as Mozilla Firefox to operate, and can therefore be accessed from almost any location making it ideal for multi site, remote access, and flexible home/ office working,” Paul said, “and it is simple to give access to remote/ home workers, or advisers and accountants from their offices, with the business firmly in control of which parts of the system any individual user can access.”
He added, “security of the business system and data is of particular importance and unless there is a dedicated in-house IT function it is costly and time consuming to ensure the business is running the latest and most secure software, its firewall is secure, and that regular backups are taken, but with Central Accounting all data communication is encrypted, business updates are applied to every installation so every business is always up to date, and each business installation is automatically backed up daily, weekly, and monthly, though the business can also take regular backups of their own data and download to a local hard drive in a matter of seconds if they wish to.”
So with the functionality of an ERP system costing tens of thousands of pounds, it’s still going to be expensive, right? “No, we don’t sell the application,” Paul explained, “we rent it to the users, and with prices starting at only £35 per month (plus VAT) for a five-user installation, it’s little more than the average mobile phone contract!”
When desktop solutions like Sage or Quickbooks, plus assorted ‘bolt-on’ applications, or spreadsheets are no longer man for the job, and a full-blown ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system such as SAP starts at tens-of-thousands of pounds, where do you go for a reliable, cost effective, business solution?
That was the dilemma facing accountant, Paul Driscoll, in 2005 when helping a client business which was looking to streamline its processes. “Many small businesses have the same problems calculating their material requirements, or planning their production, as large businesses, but not the reserves of time and funds required to invest in the large MRP (Material Requirements Planning) or ERP software solutions designed to meet such problems,” Paul noted.
Paul is no stranger to ERP systems having implemented several for clients over the last twenty years. “The problem is that these come with a hefty price tag; several have cost over a quarter-of-a-million pounds to implement, with tens-of-thousands per year thereafter in license and support fees, and expensive servers and networks to run them on” he said, “and with even the ‘entry-level’ systems costing thirty-to-fifty thousand, they are well beyond the wallet of most of my clients.”
But Paul’s experience pre-dates these implementations since as Finance Director for a group of Unilever subsidiaries in Gloucestershire in the late 1980’s, Paul worked with Dr. John Ellis on the early days of just such a system, which John went on to develop into the highly regarded Efacs ERP system, so he had a very good understanding of how these systems work, and seriously started to consider designing and writing an application specifically for small businesses.
“What I lacked was the technical ability to write such an application from scratch, so I discussed the idea with a client which did have those skills, and after some discussion and market research, we decided that we should get together and develop an application that would fill the gap in the market place,” Paul explained, “and with the others involved being non-accountants, there was never any chance of coming up with something that required the user to understand the difference between debits and credits!”
To test the underlying development software, the team incorporated as Hudman Limited, and launched ShoppingPlanner just before Christmas 2005. Shopping Planner is a free application (currently over 5,000 registered members/ users and 12,000+ recipes) which enables a member to set up their own recipes including ingredients, and their personal meal plan for a period of time (week, month, etc.) and then generate a shopping list of ingredients, consolidating requirements of the same ingredients, converting different units of measure into a common measure, and working out latest appropriate best before dates etc..
“We know from feedback that in addition to the general population, ShoppingPlanner is used by nutritionists both in private practice and the NHS as a tool for helping plan diets for their clients, and in particular to support economically disadvantaged clients in making low cost healthy meal choices,” Paul added.
Then in November 2009, the team launched Central Accounting which aims to give smaller businesses the same potential to improve productivity, operating efficiencies, and therefore competitiveness, as the very best large ERP applications, but at a very affordable price.
Central Accounting has been designed with the user in mind in order to get the business up and running as quickly as possible and with a minimum of technical accounting (financial transactions are created in the background in ‘real time’) or IT knowledge; it does not require any specialist software to be installed on PCs or workstations, nor any specialist in-house IT administration, servers, or networks, making it ideal for even the smallest businesses
“Central Accounting is a good example of ‘cloud computing‘ – it just requires a PC or Mac with an appropriate Internet browser such as Mozilla Firefox to operate, and can therefore be accessed from almost any location making it ideal for multi site, remote access, and flexible home/ office working,” Paul said, “and it is simple to give access to remote/ home workers, or advisers and accountants from their offices, with the business firmly in control of which parts of the system any individual user can access.”
He added, “security of the business system and data is of particular importance and unless there is a dedicated in-house IT function it is costly and time consuming to ensure the business is running the latest and most secure software, its firewall is secure, and that regular backups are taken, but with Central Accounting all data communication is encrypted, business updates are applied to every installation so every business is always up to date, and each business installation is automatically backed up daily, weekly, and monthly, though the business can also take regular backups of their own data and download to a local hard drive in a matter of seconds if they wish to.”
So with the functionality of an ERP system costing tens of thousands of pounds, it’s still going to be expensive, right? “No, we don’t sell the application,” Paul explained, “we rent it to the users, and with prices starting at only £35 per month (plus VAT) for a five-user installation, it’s little more than the average mobile phone contract!”