Replacing a Legacy Finance System with a Secure Cloud Platform
How a printing and manufacturing company moved off an ageing desktop accounting package without disrupting production, and connected finance to the departments it depends on.
The Situation
The company ran its finances on a desktop accounting application that had served it well for years and could no longer keep up. Financial information sat on one machine, which meant anyone who needed a figure had to ask the person sitting at it.
The bigger problem was that finance did not work alone. Procurement, production, estimation and inventory all generated information the finance team needed, and none of it flowed automatically. The same data was keyed in twice, sometimes three times, in different places.
There were real concerns about moving to the cloud, and they deserved a proper answer rather than reassurance. Who would be able to see what. What happens to the historical records. What happens if the internet goes down mid-production.
The company was not choosing accounting software. It was deciding how its finance function would work for the next decade.
What we did
We built a structured transformation programme rather than an installation. Implementation, migration, controls, training and post-go-live support were planned as one piece of work, because treating them separately is how these projects fail.
The migration was the part that carried the most risk. Historical information and opening balances had to move across accurately, and production could not stop while it happened.
Inside the work
We started with the chart of accounts, reviewing and redesigning it so the new system would report the way the business actually thinks. Customer and supplier master data was prepared and cleaned before anything moved. We configured receivables, payables, banking and reconciliation processes, then the tax and financial reporting settings.
Because the finance function serves several departments, we built transaction workflows specific to each one, with role-based access and approval controls determining who could do what. That answered the security question directly rather than in principle: named permissions, audit trails, authentication recommendations, and clearly defined boundaries between roles.
Data migration ran on prepared templates for opening balances and historical information, and every migrated figure was validated and reconciled before go-live. We then trained users across each department on the parts of the system relevant to their role, and stayed on afterwards through stabilisation.
The outcome
- A supported cloud finance environment replacing an unsupported desktop one
- Finance and operational departments working from the same information
- Financial information accessible without depending on one machine
- Duplicate data entry across departments substantially reduced
- Role-based access controls and clear user accountability
- More consistent transaction processing across the business
- Improved auditability and a complete transaction history
- Business continuity no longer tied to a single local installation
- A platform that can carry future growth
Does this sound familiar?
