Case Study - NorthgateArinso

Background

NorthgateArinso is a global company with over 6,500 staff in over 30 countries. The company's core business is the provision of HR, payroll and pension software and services to employers of all sizes including Global Fortune 500 companies and many Public Sector organisations.

NorthgateArinso Pensions is a division of NorthgateArinso and provides Pension Administration Software and Services to in-house pensions departments as well as providing Outsourcing Pension Administration solutions. The organisation has 90 staff and has offices in Bristol, Marlow, Stoke and London. Key customers in the UK include Royal Mail, Clarks, Pearson, Rentokil, Associated British Foods, Michelin, Boots, Vauxhall, Thomson and BUPA.

Challenge/Requirements

Key challenge: Needed a new accounting platform to more efficiently manage its pensions funds and launch a hosted service to in-house pensions departments.

For several years NorthgateArinso Pensions relied on a combination of legacy systems and the use of spreadsheets to manage its pension fund accounts. According to Pensions Divisional Director at NorthgateArinso, Keith Galliford:

"This approach proved both cumbersome and time-consuming and it was difficult to set up each new member scheme. There were two triggers for looking for an alternative that would enable us to consolidate the accounting onto a single system. The first was that we were looking to win new large contracts and secondly we wanted to offer a hosted accounting system that would enable in-house pensions departments to administer their pension fund accounts remotely."

"We decided we needed a new accounting solution that was robust, flexible and could be integrated with our own pensions administration systems developed in-house."

Evaluation and Selection - Finding an ‘out of the box' solution that could be customised.

NorthgateArinso set up an evaluation team to search the market. After reviewing 5-6 suppliers a shortlist of three was created followed by demos of the software. Keith explains:

"Ultimately we chose bluQube because it could meet our demands for flexibility, sophisticated reporting and support for multi-site operation, all within our budget"

"We saw bluQube as an ‘out of the box' solution that could be customised to our needs. Some of the other contenders gave us the impression that if we didn't like the product as it was then we would have to live with the limitations. bluQube on the other hand convinced us that the product would be fully supported and would help us with any necessary development work to meet our bespoke needs."

He added, "The rapport between our two companies was also good. They were very open and we felt that the characteristics of bluQube matched our own company ethos which is to provide easy to use solutions that can be tailored to customers' needs."

Talking about minimising the risk of selecting a product such as bluQube, Keith comments, "We knew that bluQube hadn't been used in a pensions environment before but any risk was quickly dismissed after frank discussions with bluQube confirmed they could meet all our requirements now and in the future."

"The fact that it was browser based also helped because we wanted the software to be accessed from different locations and different users."

The implementation Smooth process facilitated by the skills and knowledge of bluQube's people

Keith says, "We were impressed by the professionalism of bluQube's team and the quality of the training provided. They were able to configure the system so we could get the best out of it. Overall there has been a very positive reaction to the software. The delivery and functionality has been exactly what was promised and staff have found that getting data in and out of bluQube is incredibly straightforward."

How it works in practice

bluQube is used as the accounting tool for NorthgateArinso's administered pensions funds and works in conjunction with their own pension administration software packages. In addition other clients can use a hosted version of bluQube to access accounting data remotely and administer their own accounts.

NorthgateArinso currently manages over 50 UK pension schemes using its own pensions administration product. The company has its own team of fully qualified accountants that are responsible for overseeing the financial data for each fund.

They use bluQube to manage bank reconciliations, oversee payments in and out of the fund as well as using its reporting functionality to produce annual accounts and updates.

"When you are handling defined contribution schemes there are often large volumes of data" explains Keith Galliford. "Using bluQube enables data to be input and extracted quickly, easily and in a straightforward manner. In the future, we plan to integrate bluQube with our in-house pension administration applications, enabling real-time updating of data."

"One of the features that we really like with bluQube is that it presents large numbers very clearly so they are easy to read on-screen. Our accountants also like the ability to be able to "drill down" from headline figures so they can investigate and answer queries quickly and accurately."

bluQube's journal reporting feature works in conjunction with the well-known CaseWare package, providing it with all the data required for producing statutory SORP compliant reports. Accounting professionals can also use the reporting facilities to show summaries of monies in and out of funds.

Support for additional revenue stream

For Northgate's recently launched hosted service, bluQube is accessed remotely by customers via a standard web browser interface. Keith explains, "This service enables large companies with their own pension teams to manage their pension fund accounts themselves, whenever they want and produce their own reports."

"Clarks Shoes is the first customer to use the hosted facility. However now the model has been proven, our target is to offer the service to the many large blue chip companies that still operate in-house pension administration enabling them to manage their accounting requirements alongside their pension administration service."

Key Benefits

Keith summarises, "We can now demonstrate to existing and potential customers that we can offer a consolidated, flexible, reliable and state-of-the-art pensions accounting system. Using bluQube we can easily meet the different requirements for individual company schemes on a cost-effective basis enabling us to pass these savings onto our customers.

"So far we have been really impressed by bluQube. Their input and support has been first-class enabling us to really take advantage of the benefits that a modern accounting system can offer. Overall it will help us to make major efficiencies in administration of our pension fund accounts as well as help us to support a new hosted service that differentiates us from the competition as well as boosting overall revenues."