Navigator Global Investments and Business Central

“Business Central is a solution that will continue to pay dividends for our users and our organisation.”

Sean Edwards, Financial Controller, Navigator Global Investments.

The Organisation:

Navigator Global Investments Limited (NGI) is a holding company engaged in the provision of investment management products and services to investors globally. With their head office in Brisbane, the ASX-listed company has a global presence and a diverse board of directors situated across the world.

The Need:

NGI had been utilising Microsoft Dynamics GP as their finance system for 15 years. They had implemented updates periodically as needed or as dictated by Microsoft, but had never undergone a major overhaul. Anticipating the evolving landscape of finance systems and acknowledging the benefits of cloud solutions, they desired to transition to a cloud-based system to align with future advancements.

Recognising the outdated state of the General Ledger (GL) system, they identified a need for the clean-up and reorganisation of their data prior to implementing a new solution. With a large number of redundant accounts—they were only using about 20%—the clean-up process allowed them to also create a new system to organise their GL in the future.

“I was very impressed with how Navigator Global Investments tackled the challenge of cleaning up their data. As a consultant, I know the benefits doing this prior to implementation can bring. It is wonderful to work with a client who also sees those benefits and takes action.”

Business Central consultant, Professional Advantage.

As a global company, the team identified that implementing a finance system capable of accommodating different regions, date formats, and currencies would be highly beneficial in supporting their global operations.

With a proactive stance and commitment to embracing new technology, NGI aim to stay ahead of industry trends and embrace the benefits of new systems. Therefore, upgrading their finance system—an expense that they viewed as a prudent long-term investment—was a decision they knew would bring improved efficiency, scalability, and financial performance.

The Solution:

Users would lose track of the correct version or make changes that impacted the formulas. When validation checks didn’t catch changes, such as changes to hidden fields, managers had to do tedious detective work. The overall process was manual, time-consuming, and error-prone.

“We have a long-standing and trusted relationship with PA. We have regular catch ups with our Client Management Team, and have dealt with the same consultant for over 5 years. We were very happy to continue this relationship with Business Central.”

Sean Edwards, Financial Controller, Navigator Global Investments.

Some of the broader project objectives that the organisation highlighted to promote a smooth implementation process and go live included:

• To clean up their data, and transition to the cloud.
• To maintain functionality at all times through the transition process.
• To navigate through third party apps and their integration with their systems and processes.
• To focus on the end result rather than the time taken, ensuring an optimised and usable solution at go-live.

“We were confident in what PA could achieve for us and the end result.”

You can read more about the relationship between Navigator Global Investments and PA in this client story.

The Results:

“The project has gone well beyond achieving the initial objectives.”

Beyond exceeding the project objectives, NGI have experienced cost savings in areas such as the decommissioning of their storage (virtual servers) in favour of the cloud. But it is the time savings across the organisation that have been hugely significant, which include:

• Access to systems from worldwide locations.
  With a cloud-based system, users across the world (specifically their US team) can log in instantaneously. This is in stark contrast to the previous setup of connecting to virtual servers based in Australia through VPNs and multi-factor authentication.
• Elimination of manual processing.
  The team have moved from downloading PDF documents from their multiple banks and typing in every transaction, to exporting monthly transactions and importing them directly into Business Central.
• Automation of banking and payments.
  The ability to enter bank transfer information directly into Business Central and the seamless integration of Business Central with other Microsoft apps has eliminated payment and cheque runs. Instead, invoices are sent into Business Central, the approval process is run, the invoices are captured for the weekly pay run, and a user simply ticks the invoices for payment.
  “A bank reconciliation used to take a whole day. Now it takes 2 hours. Our month end could previously be completed in 8 days at a push. This is now completed easily in 6 days.”

Moving their systems to the cloud has brought benefits beyond the time saving of instant access.
“We now have access to the big Microsoft upgrades that happen twice a year, providing us with up-to-date functionality.”
A migration to the cloud has enhanced the security of both their data and information and that of their clients.
Whilst the organisation already used minimal paper, storing their information in the cloud where it is easily accessible, as well as automating processes and payments, has further encouraged a paper-free environment.

The elimination of manual processing also facilitates elimination of human error.
“The functionality and integration between all systems allows for processes such as the export of a journal, publishing that journal into Business Central, and copying and pasting data rather than manually typing.”
Sean also highlights that the integration of Business Central with other Microsoft applications is a significant help.

The implementation of Business Central has allowed for those that do not typically use the organisation’s ERP system to have approval access.
“We have team members that aren’t Business Central users, but have enough access to simply go in and approve an invoice when needed. This keeps all our data in the same place, but doesn’t put pressure on them to learn a whole new system.”

To ensure the reaction to the new system was a good one, the leaders of the project took time to discuss the solution and the changes it would bring with the team.
“Ultimately we knew it would make their life easier, and so that made Business Central an easy sell.”
A project of this size brings significant change to the working practices of the team, and so NGI made special effort to keep the team abreast of the project, the progress, and the changes that would come to encourage early acceptance and engagement.
“The feedback from the team has been ‘Wow, it is so easy!’.”

You can read about their use of add-ons for Business Central in this Navigator Global Investments and Continia case study.

The Future:

NGI anticipates the continual evolution and adaptation of IT, and has worked hard to position themselves to embrace and capitalise on emerging opportunities and enhancements.

“Companies cannot underestimate the importance of IT. By keeping pace with technology, we are in a strong position and ideally placed to take advantage of future features.” 

Sean emphasises the importance of taking the plunge and undertaking a significant project like this for future security and growth.

“The longer you leave it, the harder it will be. Ultimately, the dividends received after a project like this will be massive and very much worth it.”

Sean succinctly summarised his experienced with NGI’s implementation of Business Central with Professional Advantage:

“It has been a challenging but positive experience. We are incredibly satisfied.”

You can also read our case study with Navigator Global Investments on their implementation of the CPM solution Solver.