With Infor’s financial management solu-
tion, SunSystems, USALI compliance is in-built. “When we install a new system, we’ve prebuilt the database – what we call the hospitality core, which is USALI-compliant – so we drop this in, tweak it round the edges and then the customer’s good to go.” Hospitality businesses are also increas- ingly moving their accounting systems online because of the many benefits cloud hosting brings – although it’s been a bit of a slow process convincing some operators, accord- ing to McIndoe. “Hospitality has been pretty slow on the
uptake of cloud systems, but we’ve dragged cus- tomers kicking and screaming into the 21st cen- tury, and now we’re seeing a big shift towards them putting their financial systems in the cloud and accessing them that way,” he says. There are a few different drivers behind
this shift. “First, it means you can keep up, as it’s always being updated for you,” McIn- doe notes. “Plus, security’s a big thing – you’re much more secure going online than you are putting it in a box in the corner of the hotel.” For Reid, security should be the number one consideration for operators. “Data must be secure and it must be backed up,” he stresses. “Data security is probably more important than 24/7 access.”
That said, being able to access financial information from anywhere at any time is another key benefit of hosting financial sys- tems on the cloud, according to McIndoe. “No longer does the financial controller or the chief financial officer want to be tied to their desk; they want to be able to access the system with an iPad on the train in the morning or they may be on the golf course with clients and want to authorise a request on an iPhone,” he explains. “Mobility is playing more and more of a role in financial solutions.” Wellingham agrees: “In this day and age, you should be able to interact with your sys- tem from anywhere. You should have access to your system at your desk, on the road, on your tablet, on your phone, or be able to ask for a report on-demand even if you are a non- system user. You should not have to rely on expensive and skilled finance people to run
reports. For example, a sales representative on the road should be able to easily get informa- tion on the key performance indicator figures for their customers or agents.” However, the cloud model won’t be right
for every business, Mark Jelley, hospitality consultant at IT solutions company Avenue9, is keen to stress. “Both [cloud and managed systems] have their upsides. Cloud offers the managing of your own accounts, but with the flexibility of being able to flex an estate. Man- aged accounting services are very good if you have a very small accounting team who have a high volume of transactions to deal with.”
Integration – an absolute must For McIndoe, it’s the amount of information that can be pulled together from various sys- tems that really sets the most state-of-the-art technologies apart from the rest. “An account- ing solution has typically been an accounting solution; all it’s doing is numbers, credits and
ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION ACROSS ALL HOTELS
The last year has seen a major overhaul of Redefine BDL Hotels’ accounting and forecasting systems, to the benefit of all 69 hotels the company manages, according to business analysis and systems manager Craig Richmond. When the management
team for the independent hotel management company decided it was time to upgrade the businesses’ financial management and budgeting and forecasting systems, there were a few criteria that had to be met. Not only did the new systems need to
24 | Technology Prospectus 2016
be able to satisfy the requirements of a company made up of around 100 legal entities, they also had to offer excellent reporting capabilities and the ability for all appropriate staff to be able to access current performance information online. After looking at several
different systems, the team opted for Infor’s SunSystems for financial management (which was implemented 10 months ago) and IBM’s Cognos TM1 solution for budgeting and forecasting (which went live in March 2015), before
linking the two together. And although getting to know
the two new systems did take the team a bit of time, both hotels and the company’s central management staff are now seeing big benefits, according to business analysis and systems manager Craig Richmond. “Accessibility of information has been a really key advantage,” he says. “Everything is online and
available to the relevant staff, and everyone is confident that the information on the system is the latest, signed-off information.”
Plus, Excel spreadsheets
have been eradicated from the budgeting and forecasting process (except if they need to be exported to non-Cognos users), limiting the amount of financial information sent by email and further improving efficiencies. There is also potential to
expand the use of the systems across different areas of the business, and efficiencies are only set to increase as teams across the company get more and more used to their new, improved normal.
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