The Access Group, one of the UK’s leading providers of business software, has today announced the winners of its inaugural Access Freedom to do More Customer Awards. The winners, announced at the annual Access World conference, include adult education provider City Lit, home and domiciliary care providers Guardian Angel Carers and recruitment firm the McGinley Group. The award winners represent the best of technology innovation and growth amongst UK mid-market businesses.
“We’re delighted to be rewarding these three organisations for their commitment to innovation. It’s great to see brands like City Lit, Guardian Angel Carers and the McGinley Group using Access Group’s solutions to streamline their business processes, freeing up time to spend on innovation and providing an exemplary experience to their customers,” said CMO, Chris Marjara.
Access World is one of the biggest software industry conferences of 2018, and is a chance for customers and industry professionals to network and gain insight into how technology can enable business efficiencies and growth. Each winner was announced at the first ever Access Freedom to do More Customer Awards ceremony, and more detail on the winners can be found below.
City Lit
Struggling with manual financial tasks in Excel, adult education college City Lit realised that its way of working was a significant drain on the finance team’s time and resources, and meant they were unable to service its customers in a timely fashion. City Lit decided to work with Access Group to streamline its payroll, finance and accounting functions. Prior to working with Access Group, City Lit was trading at a loss, but since implementation the organisation has seen profitability for the last four years due to better information and data records. They are now able to raise POs in a matter of minutes, with electronic sign offs activated, and have more control over the entire accounting process benefitting both faculty and students.
Paul Evans, Chief Financial Officer at City Lit: “This is the third time that I’ve chosen Access Group as a supplier, having implemented their solutions at both The Children’s Commissioner for England and UK Anti-Doping. The fact that I’ve come back, time and time again, really indicates my satisfaction with Access Group, and the positive impact it can have on freeing up staff time.”
“Now the finance team is much more focused around partnering and helping drive efficiencies and improvements in the business, helping to support the budget holders and the business managers in terms of getting the best out of the finances. We have also integrated both the finance & HR system with our course planning (EBS), which has significantly reduced manual data entry and improved the timeliness of financial information ten-fold,” Evans added.
Guardian Angel Carers
There is no denying that the care industry is under increasing pressure from both regulatory and capacity perspectives. Guardian Angel Carers has been an early adopter of technology solutions to assist with those pressures. Since working with Access Group’s People Planner and Mobizio solutions, Guardian Angel Carers has reduced their administration costs; it is delivering 100 percent auditing of medication records; and most importantly is extending the time carers have with clients by at least 5 minutes per visit, thanks to the use of electronic records and a smart App with real time data communicating between the office and field based care team.
Christina Bassadone, Managing Director at Guardian Angel Carers: “With Access Group, we’re able to remain much more compliant with our regulatory body, and we have indeed raised the game in terms of how care is delivered.”
“Staff, including carers, senior carers and managers spend less time on mundane tasks and travel, and more time on care and delivering a high quality service. There is no delay in spotting any potential missed visits, as alerts are raised in real time, so that the back office team can address them instantly. This and other performance gains has resulted in CQC listing us as Outstanding in the rankings,” Bassadone added.
McGinley Group
As the second fastest growing recruitment group in the UK and Ireland, McGinley Group identified a need to scale, streamline and automate numerous admin tasks with Access Group’s Recruitment CRM, Pay and Bill and Financials offerings. Through Access Group, McGinley was able to automate numerous processes, enhance and integrate its operational reporting capabilities whist saving time, and negating human error. The company has been able to reduce the time spent processing payroll from five working days down to two, while increasing the number of workers processed from 300 to 2,400 in one payroll division alone.
Carrie Sheen, IT Manager at McGinley Group: “Automating our reporting management information with Access Group has ensured there are no inaccuracies between actuality and what is being reported on. We have improved data reliability and reduced complexity when it comes to dealing with compliance procedures. The level of detail we’ve been able to achieve through Access Group has allowed us to make better business decisions and focus on growth.”
