April 23 2008 - COA Solutions (formerly CedarOpenAccounts) has won a £750,000 contract to supply Virgin Trains with an integrated financial management system comprising a comprehensive portfolio of financial, procurement, forecasting and document management solutions. In time, Virgin Trains will look at adding HR and recruitment functionality COA Solutions' system, which will be made available to 250 Virgin Trains staff across the UK, is expected to go-live in September 2008.
Virgin Trains required an integrated financial management system to replace its outdated accounting solution. Virgin needed the system to provide improved financial control, increased business efficiency and better forecasting. Following a competitive tender, Virgin Trains chose a system from COA Solutions comprising an OpenAccounts accounting system, an eBis web system for online procurement, a Collaborative Planning tool for budgeting and forecasting and Version One's electronic document storage solution.
Andy Cross, Business Support Director for Virgin Trains, comments, "As a service driven company it's imperative that we deliver the very best levels of service in every area of our business. This includes ensuring our business processes operate as efficiently as possible and are supported by market-leading systems. Our previous accounting system hadn't been updated for several years and we didn't require all of its complex functionality and so we decided to seek a new system that would be able to meet all of our needs going forward."
Cross continues, "COA Solutions fully understands the needs of transport organisations and as such, the software exactly meets our requirements. The COA Solutions system will replace time-consuming manual-based financial processes with automated procedures which will save staff time and enable them to carry-out more value-adding activities. Purchase-to-pay efficiency will also be improved, allowing us to pay our suppliers in a timelier manner."
The new system will cut costs across the business and will provide Virgin Trains with improved financial control as well as greater compliance with its procurement contracts. In addition, it will allow the company to electronically store and retrieve documents from the desktop and more easily create and monitor financial plans and forecasts.
Cross adds, "Looking ahead, we look forward to evaluating the system's HR and recruitment functionality as this could allow us to further improve our business processes and ultimately deliver an even better service to our staff, customers and suppliers."
Contact
HRM Guide Network