Chesterton Residential

Chesterton Residential has been at the forefront of the property market since 1805.

The company believes that the quality of their people and their superior service have enabled them to maintain this position, with 17 offices across London offering a vast selection of properties to buy or rent. They also have specialist departments to deal with property management and international sales and consultancy, whether as a single or corporate landlord.

A key business driver behind sourcing a new financial management solution was the requirement to have a comprehensive and robust financial management solution, attuned to the needs of an industry leading organisation. In addition, the group needed a system that would cater for future growth of the organisation and allow them to easily manage a multiple cost centre requirement.

Nicholas Ttarou, Chesterton's Divisional Financial Controller led the project and, having come across Sapphire in a previous role, decided to contact Sapphire again as he considered that the team really knew their products. When looking at the whole package – including service, market experience and financial expertise, Nicholas deemed Sapphire to fit the bill.

Following a review period, SAP Business One was selected as the best fit for

Chesterton as, not only did it "tick all the boxes" for their financial and reporting requirements, but it also offered them extended business management capabilities including support for their Marketing and HR processes. Nicholas said "SAP Business

One has a modern look and feel. In addition, the team felt that the nominal code structures and other technical specifications made it more flexible than other comparative systems."

The design and implementation period took place over the course of just two weeks.

Nicholas commented "The Sapphire team were great at advising us on the best way to make use of the solution. Since we had no experience of using an integrated business management solution, it was a good opportunity for us to learn the 'best practice' methods for making the best use of the functionality offered by SAP Business One. The

Sapphire personnel involved in the set-up really knew their stuff and were able to easily manipulate the system to Chesterton's needs."

With SAP Business One now in place, Nicholas observes that the solution is performing very well, and that Chesterton is benefiting from having a flexible and comprehensive financial accounting system to work with. Chesterton recently passed their first audit using SAP Business One which, Nicholas says "went very well, particularly when you take into account the fact that there was no real system in place following a recent buyout of the company." He goes on to say "We find SAP Business One is very easy to use. What's more, it has been very easy to train users in the basics – so much so that we often have our temps working on the system."

Commenting on the working relationship with Sapphire, Nicholas says "I would definitely recommend Sapphire as a business partner. The support team is very responsive and we have found that the organisation as a whole is easy to deal with. Our Account Manager, in particular, is very good at getting back to us whenever we have any queries. This responsiveness was particularly important at the beginning of the project, when the team really speeded things through for us to enable a very quick implementation."

To others reviewing their financial accounting solution, Nicholas advises "Work out what you want to get out of the system, such as improvements in reporting or restructure.

Don't go for a 'big bang' approach and try to change everything, rather work towards defined goals and managed processes."

Looking to the future Nicholas says "We are planning to add a few more functions, such as electronic remittance advice, and we are looking to set up Vision Executive Reporting and Alerts* to run overnight, in order to save even more time. The solution is currently in use at only one of our sites, but I would like to roll it out so that all 17 sites can benefit from its purchase order capabilities."

Paul Rogers, part of the SAP Business One team at Sapphire observes "One of the great things about SAP Business One is that it has strong financial accounting capabilities as well as modules that cover other aspects of business management which users can utilise as necessary. In my experience this solution guarantees greater efficiency which is particularly beneficial at Year End and audit periods."

Media contact: Victoria Park +44 (0)20 7648 2008 Victoria.park@sapphiresystems.com