Download PDF
Grant Thornton LLP Trust Its Operations to Sage 300
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Professional Service
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Predictive Quality Analytics
- Supply Chain Visibility
Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Grant Thornton LLP, a member of Grant Thornton International Ltd., is a leading organization of independently owned and managed accounting and consulting firms. The Canadian firm operates from locations spanning from Victoria, B.C., to St. John’s, N.L., and employs more than 4,000 professionals. The firm standardized its operations on Sage 300 back in 1999. However, until 2005, each of the firm’s business units ran a separate instance of Sage 300 software, sending summarized data to the company’s headquarters in Toronto. This led to inconsistencies in account structure, security issues, and control of the database. The firm also found that the administration and reporting of Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) was more easily managed.
About The Customer
Grant Thornton LLP is one of the Canadian members of Grant Thornton International Ltd., one of the world’s leading organizations of independently owned and managed accounting and consulting firms. The firm has over 40,000 employees across 130 countries. The Canadian firm operates from locations spanning from Victoria, B.C., to St. John’s, N.L., and employs more than 4,000 professionals. As a professional accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP is very discriminating when it comes to selecting their own internal accounting applications. The firm standardized its operations on Sage 300 back in 1999.
The Solution
To address the challenges, Grant Thornton LLP consolidated its operations on Sage 300. The benefits resulting from the consolidation are significant. By centralizing the application, the firm was able to ensure consistency in account structure and avoid duplicates or multiple formats. Security is more easily managed, as fewer individuals need access to sensitive administrative data. Control of the database overall, including backups and storage, also is better served. The firm’s business units are represented as individual companies in the Sage 300 system; each has secure access to its company database to enter accounts payable transactions, complete journal entries, and run various reports. Many other transactions, however, originate at a corporate level and need to be allocated across the business units. By using the Intercompany Transactions module, Grant Thornton LLP is able to distribute accounts payable transactions and general ledger journal entries to each business unit in a single transaction.
Operational Impact
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
UBM plc: Taking the pulse of the business and engaging employees with a far-reaching strategic transformation
UBM, a leading global events business, was undergoing a significant strategic transformation named 'Events First'. As part of this transformation, the company was preparing to complete the largest acquisition in its history - Advanstar, a US-based events and marketing services business valued at more than USD970m. The company faced the risk of human capital flight if it was unable to effectively engage top talent with the new strategic direction. UBM needed to make significant structural, process and systems changes, uniting its previously autonomous regional businesses. The challenge was to ensure all of its employees were engaged and aligned with the new future vision.
Case Study
Wittmann EDV-Systeme launches IT monitoring services
Small and medium-sized businesses often lack the know-how and resources required for thorough IT system monitoring. Wittmann EDV-Systeme wanted to launch a solution to plug the gap – enabling it to improve its own competitiveness and that of its customers. IT landscapes are becoming ever more complex and outsourcing is gaining popularity, IT systems must nonetheless remain easy-to-use and extremely reliable at all times. Automated, round-the-clock system monitoring therefore represents an immensely valuable proposition for companies: downtime for business-critical applications can be avoided, and IT systems remain available at all times.
Case Study
Uncovering behavioral insight to help reward and retain the best employees
The HR services company, an IBM client, was facing the challenge of understanding the factors underlying personal employment choices. They wanted to offer their clients unprecedented insight into what motivates employees and prospective job candidates. However, their existing systems were not capable of handling the surging data volumes collected from a wide range of different data sources. With the total volume likely to keep on growing, the firm looked for a solution that could meet current needs and scale to meet tomorrow’s demands.
Case Study
Infosys achieves a 5–7 percent effort reduction across projects
Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, and outsourcing solutions, was facing significant challenges in application development and maintenance due to its distributed teams, changing business priorities and the need to stay in alignment with customer needs. The company used a mix of open source, home-grown and third-party applications to support application development projects. However, challenges resulting from distributed teams using manual processes increased as the company grew. It became more and more important for Infosys to execute its projects efficiently, so they could improve quality, reduce defects and minimize delays.
Case Study
Flex Contact Center: Supporting rapid business growth with IBM Connections Cloud and IBM Verse
Flex Contact Center, a professional services company offering telesales, call-center, anti-attrition, back-office, helpdesk and collection services, has grown rapidly since its establishment in 2009. With operations in 12 sites across two states and four cities in Brazil, the company employs more than 11,000 people. However, the company realized that to prevent barriers to future expansion, it was essential to make it as easy as possible for its people to work together effectively—even if they were based in separate geographical locations. Traditional approaches to collaboration—based on email and phone calls—threatened to reduce productivity. Flex Contact Center wanted to enable better collaboration and communication across its workforce, but did not want to make large investments in infrastructure.
Case Study
PureFluent: Connecting to partners and customers through the cloud for enhanced productivity
PureFluent, a translation services company, was facing challenges in managing its translation and document review processes. The company often received files in uneditable formats from customers, which required staff members to transfer text to word processing or spreadsheet documents. During the translation process, maintaining version control was a challenge because PureFluent sent work to hundreds of translators in multiple geographic locations. It was also time-consuming for staff to manage the large volume of emails and FTP transactions required to submit translations for customer review and ensure the integration of requested changes. Furthermore, staff were spending significant time hunting through their emails for specific attachments.