The Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society of South Australia Inc.(RAHS) is the organiser of the state's largest event, the Royal Adelaide Show, which attracts approximately 40% of South Australia's population. Further to this, the Adelaide Showground provides facilities to more than 100 exhibitions, conventions and banquets each year.
‘The software has interfaced directly with our job costing software and has provided access to our staff who have now taken ownership of their budgets. The ability to drill down to the financial entries has given a visibility to the actual versus budget results that has been well received by staff at all levels’
Compass Medical Waste Services (Pty) Ltd, is a privately owned organisation, and the largest healthcare risk waste containment and treatment (HCRW) company in South Africa. Compass has been in operation since 1998 and has a national footprint that extends to Gauteng, the North West, Mpumalanga, the Free State, the Northern Cape, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.
‘We were very impressed with the smooth and efficient implementation process. All our deadlines were met and the service and support from IDU was very professional.’
Retailability (Pty) Ltd is a retailer of fashion apparel intended to offer fashionable in house and branded labels at low price points targeted at lower to middle income consumers in Southern Africa. The group comprises of three brands, namely Style, Legit and Beaver Canoe.
‘I have found the IDU team to be highly professional and responsive to our needs and would recommend IDU without reservation.’
This FTSE100-listed company operating in 38 countries implemented the idu-Concept budgeting module to replace their existing fragmented and cumbersome process.
‘Receiving figures and consolidations in real time means cost centre managers spend more time looking at numbers that are relevant, and less time trying to manage the process and consolidate figures. The application is simple and easy to use, even for non-financially astute users.’
Mr Price Group is a fashion value retailer, selling predominantly for cash the group retails apparel, homeware and sportsware and is one of the fastest growing retailers in South Africa.
‘The ease of use of idu-Concept has enabled us to roll the process out far beyond the accountants. Non-financial users now have direct input to the budget process, improving its accountability.’ - Financial Systems Manager
Bidfreight Port Operations is one of the largest providers of in-port logistics in South Africa with operations in every commercial cargo port in South Africa. Their areas of expertise include warehousing, stevedoring, transportation and terminal operating services.
"The reporting of idu-Concept is just out of this world, with such a variety of reports available to all users. Users are only restricted by their own creativity in generating reports and assessing costs and revenue.’ " - Systems Accountant
Cape Consumers (Pty) Ltd was founded in 1947 as the State Employees´ Buy-Aid Association (SEBAA) offering discounts to a small group of members. Since then, Cape Consumers has grown into a giant with more than 30 000 cardholders, more than 10 000 retailers and an annual turnover in excess of R1 billion.
“I have never encountered another service provider who instills such confidence in the understanding, knowledge and skill of every member of their team,” says Stephenson. “I knew at every step that I would get the same impeccable service no matter who I spoke to – and the fact that I had access to anybody and everybody across all departments of the IDU business only strengthened that confidence.”
Sports Shared Services runs the Financial and Information support services for Chiefs Rugby and its subsidiary unions, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Counties-Manukau. This includes the accounting systems, document management, payroll, management reporting, and budgeting and forecasting processes.
“I’ve been very impressed at how IDU has not only made our whole budgeting process much simpler and speedier, but also meant that our management team have a real understanding of their budgets and take proper ownership of their financial performance on an on-going basis.”
The Community Living Trust, based in Hamilton, New Zealand, provides support services to people with intellectual disabilities to help them meet their needs and live their dreams within their communities. It operates across the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and greater Midland regions of the central North Island.
“We have some managers who are less confident around computers and I was nervous about their uptake, but they just loved idu-Concept and found it very exciting. They found it less daunting than a spreadsheet and they enjoy the fact that they can comment on each budget item.”
CRAN is the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia and regulates telecommunication services and networks, broadcasting services, postal services and the use and allocation of radio spectrum.
“IDU is a user friendly system with amazing functionalities. The software has really made our work processes more efficient.”
Hirt & Carter is one of South Africa's leading suppliers of systems-driven, integrated print solutions to the marketing, advertising and general communications industry.
‘We have used idu-Concept as our budgeting and MIS solution for both sales and financial information since 2005. It is this relationship that has enabled our management accounting team to deliver on-time, effective reports that assist with strategic and operational decisions.’
The Kargo Group of Companies specialises in Express Road Freight Distribution and Logistics.
“For years the budgets were done on an Excel Spreadsheet. With 4 Companies, multiple divisions and about 9 branches, it was a constant nightmare to keep everything in sync. Spreadsheet were sent to branch managers to modify. These spreadsheets were then sent back for finance to incorporate it into the main spreadsheet, Sometimes there were multiple versions of the spreadsheets and just maintaining the main spreadsheet was a challenge.”
St Stithians is one of South Africa's top educational facilities with in excess of 2600 students across boys and girls, pre, junior and senior school's. Before switching to IDU, they found that collecting and collating information from operations drained the resources of the finance department. More time was spent preparing the budget than developing a financial plan for the school.
“We have completed our first budget cycle in IDU and the benefits are evident and providing immediate returns. We look forward to continued success in the application of the solution.”
Africa’s largest manufacturer, distributor and exporter of brick and building products introduced idu-Concept to facilitate a multi-layered sales budget process.
'The greatest advantage idu-Concept has provided has been the ability to build our budget from the bottom up.'
GPI Slots is a division of Sun International, a company listed on the JSE Limited with investments and operations in the South African gaming and leisure industry.
“Since implementing IDU, reporting has improved immensely and the budget process is being completed far more efficiently, streamlining the cycle considerably”.
Merchants, a Dimension Data company and leading provider of bespoke outsource contact centre solutions, has implemented idu-Concept’s financial budgeting and reporting solutions for its Sage ERP Accpac system.
‘The implementation of the idu-Concept Financial Budgeting and Reporting solution has resulted in Merchants being able to achieve a paradigm shift in relation to our approach to budgeting. We have been able to leverage our base Accpac solution and provide internal customers with the information they require thanks to a dedicated and dependable on-demand reporting solution.’
The embedded functionality in IDU budgets allows the group to pre-populate large sections of the expense budget, such as remuneration and unit-driven costs. Less time is spent on capturing budgets, and more time is spent on analytical reviews. The system is easy to use, especially for non-financial users. The budget cycle is reduced and Metropolitan achieved a generous return on its investment over the years.
‘The fixed assets module has allowed Metropolitan to create accountability by line management in terms of managing their particular assets.’
Sanlam Investments is one of South Africa’s largest investment management companies. They offer a comprehensive range of local and offshore investment products to end-investors, financial planners and institutions. Their investment options include passively and actively managed unit trusts, hedge funds and segregated and pooled retirement funds.
“IDU is a robust, user-friendly and stable platform that we can highly recommend to any company looking to shorten their budget cycles, move away from the potential errors in spreadsheets and have a better day-to-day view over their entire budget,”
Servest is a leading multi-service provider in the South African and UK Facilities Management sector. The company offers catering, cleaning, interior solutions, integrated solutions, maintenance, water, landscaping, turf, energy management, security, parking, pest control, hygiene, waste management, marine transport and support services to businesses in all sectors. By using the idu-Concept Budgeting and Reporting Modules Servest have cut time and reduced error.
‘IDU is a budgeting and reporting tool that can eliminate human error. It simplifies the process in terms of budgeting, it makes it quicker, more efficient, and it saves time.’
One of South Africa’s largest residential universities was able to reduce budget turnaround time by months after implementing idu-Concept.
‘The reporting capability is easily accessible and convenient. We update our actuals daily and cost centre managers are able to see their spending at any time.’
With around 250 000 students, UNISA is one of the world’s 10 mega-universities. The university implemented idu-Concept to streamline budgeting and reporting complexities.
‘idu-Concept is an extremely powerful budgeting and reporting tool, and the best software investment the university could have made.’
South Africa’s largest property management group uses idu-Concept to drive budgets and provide interactive reporting across its portfolio of over 400 properties.
'idu-Concept has enabled us to improve the service we render to our listed funds, putting us at the forefront of property management in South Africa.
One of South Africa's most successful asset management companies sees a dramatic improvement to its budgeting process after implementing idu-Concept.
'idu-Concept is one of the best things that ever happened to us. We’d definitely recommend it to other institutions that may have the same need for a budgeting process as user friendly as idu-Concept'
One of South Africa’s largest insurance companies, Momentum traded an unproductive in-house solution for idu-Concept on a limited budget and time frame. They used the software to drive product enhancements with their remuneration budgeting requirements.
‘For the first time we have been able to include more people in the budgeting process. This has meant increased departmental involvement, tighter control and improved transparency. As a direct result, there is a greater sense of ownership over budgets, enabling a more even spread of responsibility across the divisions.’
One of New Zealand's largest retailers found their budget process a lot more bearable after implementing idu-Concept, thanks to the exceptional ease of use and excellent remote customer support.
‘idu-Concept is incredibly intuitive. Nowadays everybody is used to finding information on the internet, so the web interface to the system is familiar and easy to use. It’s reduced a lot of unnecessary back and forth between business and finance.’
Cape Union Mart is South Africa’s favourite outdoor store. In 2011 they embarked on a massive project to revamp their entire financial and POS system. The company used three idu-Concept modules – Budgeting, Reporting and Analytics – and were instantly impressed by the accuracy, real-time transparency and control it provided.
'idu-Concept is an affordable, functionally-robust solution that offers visibility across our entire business. We would recommend IDU for all its exceptional qualities, as well as their team of professional and passionate staff who fitted very naturally into our working environment for the duration of the project.'
Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust successfully runs a sophisticated community-based, not-for-profit service managing 8 cemeteries in the Melbourne area, all with a very diverse range of memorialisation, facilities and services available to clients.
"Our managers really like using IDU, they have found it much easier to use than previous systems and it saves everyone a significant amount of time. IDU has systematised our planning processes, providing us with a single point of access to accurate and timely management information."
Merchandising some of the world’s best known brands at over 20 000 outlets, this group of companies saved time and increased productivity by using idu-Concept’s online budgeting and reporting solutions.
‘idu-Concept revolutionised our budgeting process. Management is now actively involved in planning their budgets while still being able to tend to their main area of focus in the field.’
