Lawfords Chartered Accountants

“e-docs is the best thing since sliced bread!”

The Company
Lawfords Chartered Accountants were established in 1984 in Surrey, but also have offices in London, Essex and overseas, to cater for an international clientele of high net worth. They specialise in providing services and advice to businesses setting up operations in the United Kingdom but have also assisted clients based in many different countries, including the United States of America, South Africa, Russia and Italy.

As a firm of Chartered Accountants they provide the full range of accountancy and audit services, a payroll bureau, compliance services and planning advice for VAT and Corporation Tax, advice on employee benefits and pension schemes, completion of personal tax returns for clients, personal tax planning advice for non-UK nationals and also deal with UK work permit applications on behalf of clients, including advice on U.K. immigration regulations.

The Problem
As a business which is heavily dependent on paper-based documentation, Lawfords regularly found themselves wasting time searching for filed documentation and had commented that 70% of people's time in their office was spent looking for things.

They also suffered the logistical problems of having to carry vast amounts of paperwork around with them, both between company offices and to client site. In addition, hard copy documentation had to be faxed to clients and was therefore a far more time-consuming process than simply being able to email someone, as would happen with an electronic document.

The Solution
Lawfords are continually pushing their IT strategy and looking for ways to streamline their working practices, an approach which has helped the business grow consistently since the early '90s.

Neil Drinkwater, Director at Lawfords takes up the story: "e-docs has significantly improved the way we work. In large organisations there are dedicated staff controlling the current and archived files. e-docs not only decreases overheads but now ensures that files can no longer be lost or booked out to a colleague. The way we operate is to file client post immediately into the client file then forward it to the relevant person so everyone gets the benefit of online, real time, up-to-date correspondence, immediately accessible”.

Lawfords also use e-docs to link two of their offices in Surrey and Essex. Neil continues: "This means we can work remotely and keep as close an eye on our work as we would do if we were sitting in the office. Without a document management system you really can't do that. Just picking up emails doesn't allow you to really work efficiently as you need to access all relevant documentation. One of our partners, Chris Dymek went abroad for three weeks recently and his secretary was able to email his post, which is so much more convenient than faxing”.

The e-docs publishing module, which Lawfords also have, facilitates the download of client files for transferring onto either CD’s or laptops and helps Partners work more efficiently. The hours spent travelling to and from their offices and to client site are now being better utilised, without the need to carry cumbersome files of paperwork.

The Result
Neil believes his greatest achievement for the development of the business is the implementation of the e-docs document management solution. Since installing e-docs the primary focus has been on the organisation of client correspondence files. Neil explains: "We started from a specific date as we didn't want to go back and archive old material, as most of our retrieval, around 90%, concerns documents up to three months old.”

Even though the staff were still getting to grips with the new technology, within a week all internal files - invoices, sales and purchase invoices, accounts and cashbooks - went onto the system. And with the help of e-docs’ design team, the database structures which had been developed for filing were able to provide fast and efficient retrieval.

Another major benefit Neil identified was that a copy letter could be faxed or emailed to a client through e-docs from an employees’ PC while they were talking on the phone, meaning that it would be with the client in minutes, thus dramatically improving Lawfords’ customer service.

Neil concludes: “Naturally, I am very enthusiastic but luckily my colleagues agree that e-docs is the best thing since sliced bread. The biggest advantage is retrieval times, especially when 70% of people's time in our office is spent looking for things. Psychologically it's fantastic. You don't feel bogged down by piles of paper. e-docs is part of the future - life is just that bit easier now we are using it”.