Jet Boost For Beef + Lamb Finance

About the Customer

Beef + Lamb New Zealand Ltd (BLNZ) is the farmer-owned industry organization representing New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers. It invests farmer levies in programs to grow the sheep and beef industry to provide sustainable returns now and for future generations. With the key programs of Farm, Market, People, and Information, the organization delivers innovative tools and services to help make informed decisions on the farm, maintain market access, open new opportunities for farmers, and improve the farming systems of New Zealand’s sheep and beef sector.

Situtation

Julie Muller, finance manager at BLNZ, said Jet Reports is used for all monthly reporting to company managers, of which there are around 30 individuals. “They are provided with reports with forecasts, statutory, and board reports, so it is quite extensive, and we use Jet to do payment registers, fixed asset registers, and more. We pretty much rely on it to do everything.”

Prior to Jet, explained Muller, the large amount of reporting performed by the finance team was primarily done manually. “Around three years ago, we were spending days and days on the reporting every month. It would require exporting data from the financial management system, loading it into Excel, formatting it, then running macros. If something changed in the general ledger, you’d have to do that whole process again.”

It was, she confirmed, a tedious way to spend time; what’s more, as is the case with manual processing, it was error prone. “The monthly reporting cycle was taking ages and it should not be the be-all and end-all of the accounting team’s work. In some months, the cycle was stretching all the way to the 19th day; you’d finish only to have to start all over again.”

Solution

The company realized there had to be a better way, so it tested the market. Muller said it received two recommendations from the provider of its financial management solution. “We have quite specific requirements and we were adamant that the selected solution should do just what we wanted.”

And that, she explained, was software that would make the process easier and faster, without further complicating the situation. “In our view, that meant doing nothing more than importing the budgets then getting real-time updates.”

One of the solutions put forward was Jet Reports, and Muller said the company realized it was on to a winner. “We had a look and, honestly, it is the best thing we ever did.”

Results

What sparked this response from Muller is the flexibility and performance of Jet Reports, as she went on to explain. “When we went to Dynamics NAV, some reports could only be produced by developers, driving up the cost substantially. For example, standard NAV at the time didn’t have depreciation reports available that were necessary for audit purposes or tax purposes. With Jet, it does it all, including that report that once cost so much money. You don’t need to pay anything further to get any and all the reports you need. You can pull what you want into the report, analyze and get the information you want, presented in the way required.”

If that sounds advantageous, just how long does it take to get the solution in place? “It’s pretty quick; a couple of weeks, including training. Our requirements are quite complex and while we could get stuck in and write basic reports ourselves, we did need assistance from Jet’s local representative to get the more detailed reports designed.”

Thanks to Jet Reports, Muller said her team has a lot more time available to focus on the many tasks which occupy a finance department. “We’ve been freed from sitting there and trying to get information out of the finance system. It’s really good.”

In fact, so much additional time is available that her team has taken on the accounting for three other companies while reducing headcount by two people. “I’d say we need 30 to 40 percent less time to get our work done all thanks to Jet. Fix assets, for example, used to take half a day; now Jet does that automatically. That’s amazing. I’d say it’s paid for itself within a year. I don’t say this lightly, but I would thoroughly recommend it.”