Simpson Travel

An award-winning specialist tour operator with an industry heritage of almost 40 years, Simpson Travel are experts at creating truly unforgettable holidays. Travel Specialists spend a great deal of time on the road building their first-hand knowledge and local expertise, to be able to provide the personal service their clients enjoy.

Running a business from all corners of the globe, can present its own challenges, but most of us now need the capability to be able to work from wherever we want.

Having business critical information at your fingertips and being safe in the knowledge you can access your data securely through a web browser or mobile app at a time and place that suits you, can improve both productivity and efficiency.

Simpson Travel had been using Sage but were growing tired of the reporting limitations and felt they could be taking advantage of all the benefits of a cloud technology. They began the search to find a solution and partner, who could enable the business to capitalise on the opportunity of having fast, accurate information at their fingertips.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a suite of products to run and operate every element of your business. The beauty of the application-based system means you can pick and choose the elements you need. Sage is typically replaced with Business Central (previously known as NAV), the complete business solution for SME’s.

After exploring the current processes and business needs, Dynavics were able to propose Business Central as the perfect solution for Simpson Travel. It was simple to use, easy to scale, cloud hosted and part of the familiar Microsoft family.

Sage, and other desktop-based accounting packages focus on giving you a historic, backwards-looking view of your business. Microsoft Dynamics 365 deals with data differently so you can see real time information and get a true reflection of your current business position.

Unlike Sage, where there is very little automation and no connectivity, Dynamics 365 pulls in data from a variety of sources to minimise manually keyed in data, saving Simpson Travel, time and improving accuracy.

Simpson Travel were already using other Microsoft software such as Excel and Outlook, so the adoption was simple and pain free. Single sign on across the Microsoft product suite, makes life easy for the team, and sharing data across the products is quick and easy.

Exporting to Excel with Sage can be a source of headaches and time wasting. The numbers appear in different cells while the “wrap text” is on almost all the time. Creating work arounds, like exporting to CSV format, is another long process in which errors frequently occur. Since Microsoft also develops Microsoft Office and the Excel platform (the developers actually work in the same office for Office 365 and Dynamics 365), the process is streamlined and accurate, a valuable advantage for the accounting team.

By moving into the Microsoft ecosystem with Dynamics 365, Simpson Travel have future proofed their business with easy access to additional functionality and extended capabilities. Given they have doubled the number of users since the system was first implemented, growth is clearly in the businesses DNA.

When you’re running a desktop system, you’re always held back by the fact that your data and application are both sat on a local hard drive. There’s a constant need to back up your data each day, and any updates to the software must be bought and uploaded if you want to make sure you’re always using the latest version of the software and remain in compliance.

With Dynamics 365, your data is sat in the cloud on safely encrypted servers, so no costly infrastructure to maintain, low barriers to entry and unparalleled flexibility, all come as standard. When all you need is an internet connection to access your data, you can carry out any accounting operational tasks and forecast and report with ease.

It can be a daunting prospect to move from a familiar product to a different solution, even when you can see the additional features will really benefit your business. That’s why it’s so important to find a partner you can trust to deliver and will offer real value for money.

Dynavics previous experience certainly helped Simpson Travel feel at ease that they were more than capable of the task. Their willingness to work flexibly to minimise business disruption, demonstrated the type of service they were looking to receive, and the finance guided support, gave them the final confidence they needed to make the move.

Moving away from a traditional “accounting package” to Microsoft Dynamics 365, a truly integrated business solution, has driven the business forward. The implementation, was completed in under 30 days, using the seamless Dynavics tried and tested process to prepare, extract and transfer the data. The simple subscription model based on users per month means Simpson Travel only buy what they need, reducing cost and increasing profitability.

Simpson Travel now have the complete flexibility to evolve with business needs, to work anywhere, on any device, at any time, and can make fast effective decisions based on secure and accurate information.