Snowie Group adopts RAM to reduce waste

Waste management specialist acquires RAM’s solution to consolidate asset register

Snowie Group, an established market leader in the re-cycling of bio-sludges and other wastes, has selected RAM’s Fixed Asset Management solution to amalgamate its departmental asset registers and track expensive items of plant and machinery across its UK sites.

The group, headquartered in Stirling, consists of several individual business activities including sludge treatment, land restoration, specialist transport, surface control, re-cycling, tank hire and farm management. Working in conjunction with leading operators in the water industry and major players in the food, brewing and paper industries, the Snowie Group is committed to the care and protection of the environment.

With operations over 500,000 square feet of covered storage and approximately 800,000 square feet of uncovered storage at strategic sites throughout the UK, it is important to accurately record the location of assets to make them work efficiently. Until recently, each department had maintained its own register, causing major discrepancies across group reports. For example, the transport department kept an inventory of vehicles on a spreadsheet, which didn't correspond with the data held by the accounts department.

“The range of companies within the group has expanded rapidly over the last few years,” explained Duncan Carmichael, Accountant at Snowie Group. “When the new Exchequer finance system was installed, it was the ideal time to look for a solution. As Real Asset Management was highly recommended by Exchequer Software Ltd and the two products linked together, we didn't need to spend valuable time analysing other systems. On seeing the demonstration, we could easily recognise its ease of use and exceptional functionality.” The finance team at Snowie is using the software to monitor vehicles, trailers, farm machinery, plant, skips and re-cycling equipment. As some of the activities trade as separate entities, a multi-company asset register has been set up to control the expenditure and movement of capital and leasehold items across the group.

“The system will make a huge difference to our monthly reporting process,” added Carmichael. “Previously, we could only report on assets by category. Now we can produce detailed analyses of assets by company, department, cost centre and location. This has been particularly useful for our skip company, which uses the system to monitor transfers of the skips between locations.”

“A further benefit of the software is the ability to assist with job costing,” concluded Carmichael. “As some jobs warrant their own site, we can allocate the costs associated with assets required at that location and forecast depreciation for the usage period.”

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