Bell & Clements supports business growth and IFRS Compliance with excellent Fixed asset management

Lloyd’s Broker, Bell & Clements, is using Asset4000 from Real Asset Management to manage its assets. Tight integration with IRIS Exchequer financial software enables rapid monthly asset depreciation by department, providing the company with accurate costings to support profitability analysis and compliance with IFRS.

Business Growth
Bell & Clements Limited (BCL) is a Lloyd’s Broker offering insurance and reinsurance intermediaries throughout the world access to Lloyd’s of London and to London, European and Bermudian companies. The company is part of the Munich Re Group.

Formed over 25 years ago, BCL has grown rapidly in recent years and now has over 100 employees. Business expansion combined with IT innovation has created an increasingly complex register of fixed assets which now includes highly portable technology, such as BlackBerries.

The firm has traditionally used spreadsheets to keep track of the fixed asset register. However, in recent years this process has become a significant and time-consuming manual overhead. The approach was also constraining tighter financial control as Karen Bird, Accounts and Payroll Manager, BCL, explains, “The asset register holds all the furniture and IT equipment used across the business. Managing these assets on a spreadsheet was becoming too cumbersome and lacked significant detail which is a key factor in complying with the new IFRS regulations.” She continues, “Calculating asset depreciation by department was also becoming impossible and this is a key factor in assessing the profitability of each part of the business.”

Touch of a Button
The company decided it required a robust fixed asset management solution that could integrate with its IRIS Exchequer financial software. Having assessed the marketplace, BCL opted for Asset4000 from Real Asset Management (RAM). In addition to the tight integration with IRIS Exchequer, the software is extremely easy to use. Bird explains, “The link between IRIS Exchequer and Asset4000 means that asset depreciation can be done at the touch of a button. This highly detailed, monthly depreciation calculation and the associated reports now only take 20 minutes, when they used to take us days.”

Making the transition to Asset4000 was straightforward. Once BCL had ensured the spreadsheet based asset information was up-to-date with the correct model numbers, descriptions, department and cost-centre codes, RAM moved the data across and provided the company with a complete asset register in the new software. “RAM has been, and continues to be, extremely supportive,” comments Bird. “The whole migration process from old system to new was smooth and painless and the ongoing contact we have with RAM is really excellent.”

This implementation process was supported by a physical audit, undertaken by the company’s IT department, using RAM bar-coding technology to check assets and log the correct location. Bird says, “During the physical audit, BCL discovered that a lot of assets were still on the register when they did not actually exist – primarily older IT equipment.” She adds, “It was a really good way of tidying the asset register, ensuring accuracy and then putting in place the right processes to keep the register up to date.”

‘The link between IRIS Exchequer and Asset4000 means that asset depreciation can be done at the touch of a button. This highly detailed, monthly depreciation calculation and the associated reports now only take 20 minutes, when they used to take us days.’

Keeping Track
Whilst finance has immediate insight into changes in use for furniture assets, it is keeping track of the disposal of IT equipment that causes a problem for many organisations. At BCL, the IT department now updates finance each month on assets that are no longer in use and the company plans to undertake an annual audit to check accuracy. “With the bar-codes it is now a simple process to check that the asset register is correct,” she says. “IT equipment, especially laptops and Blackberries, tends to move about. It is now a simple process to update the asset register directly from the audit, regardless of the location of any asset, and ensure complete accuracy.”

 “Since implementing Asset4000, BCL has started to record assets in far greater detail,” says Bird. “In addition to desks and furniture, IT assets are recorded in greater depth, such as flat screens noted as separate items to PCs and telephones as individual items.” It is this level of detail stored in Asset4000 which will make IFRS reporting much more straightforward.

Whilst using the spreadsheet system, BCL only recorded assets with a value greater than £500 which led to inaccuracies. The ease with which Asset4000 manages and tracks assets, however, has meant that the company now uses the bar-coding to record smaller and portable assets on the register, creating a far more accurate financial record and giving the company increased control over the location and value of its assets. Bird comments, “Whilst asset loss has not, to date, been a major concern for the company, continued growth combined with the increasing number of mobile products such as Blackberries will create that risk.” Bird confirms, “With a comprehensive asset register the company can ensure excellent asset control, allowing us visibility of the location of all assets regardless of size, and in turn showing instantly the value of any of these assets.”

Business Insight
The software’s strong reporting functionality enables BCL to rapidly respond to auditor’s requirements for asset information each year-end, with reports produced and imported into Excel.

The company has also upgraded to the latest version of Asset4000, including the Capital Allowance Module. “Creating tax returns is extremely complicated with different taxable allowances and depreciation,” Bird explains. “Using the Capital Allowance Module, BCL has to make one less manual calculation which minimises the opportunity for mistakes and reduces the time taken to produce the tax return.”

Critically, senior managers now have monthly insight into asset depreciation by each of the ten departments to support in-depth analysis of income and costs across the business to ascertain profitability.

Bird maintains, “An accurate asset register is a core component of any well run business and will prove essential for IFRS compliance.” She concludes, “To date, it is Asset4000’s integration with IRIS Exchequer and the rapid calculation of asset depreciation by department that has delivered real operational benefit to BCL through improved financial insight.”

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