Australian property developer sees the potential in Greentree

JLF Commercial Pty Ltd has been a long term user of CBA. As its property development business grew, and with the introduction of compliance reporting of GST in Australia, JLF felt it needed a new financial system to better manage growth, the high volume of intercompany transactions and GST functions...

JLF Corporation consists of more than 22 companies with a turnover of $100m per annum in property and finance. Company accountant Kim Branton says JLF’s business systems needed to respond to the complex nature and growing needs of the company.

“We decided on Greentree for continued product support from the Greentree Business Partner and the Greentree product had similar functions to CBA, yet it offered so much more in terms of accessing information, data entry efficiencies and the ability to manage multicompanies.”

Since the implementation, JLF have seen vast improvements to its accounting practices. A key area of improvement has been the ability to run in-depth enquiries, as Greentree provides on line enquiries for all accounts and each transaction can be drilled-down.

“Our staff require quick and easy access to important property information,” Branton explains. “Greentree allows us to find the right information in one place instantly. With this advancement we are able to respond accurately and quickly to our customers and colleagues.”

She says amongst the core features of Greentree, there are a number of key areas that have benefited JLF’s day-to-day business, including intercompany reporting, transaction analysis, GST coding, and data entry.

Intercompany accounting is enhanced by the use of user defined, tree structures, allowing data to be analysed using JFL's own specific parameters. Greentree’s Transaction Analysis module for the General Ledger is a powerful tool that adds a whole new dimension to how accounting information may be captured and reported.

This flexibility effectively provides JLF with a 'multi dimensional' financial system that allows almost any information to be captured and reported on across the General Ledger.

“By using transaction analysis our intercompany reporting is more flexible, faster, and simpler,” says Branton. “We use this feature extensively as it allows almost any financial reporting requirement to be run.” The multi-level trees allows  JFL to view the financial information of its 22 companies and report across the entire group. Something Branton says could not be done before.

A taxing question
Another important benefit for JLF was the ability to match GST codes to suppliers. Greentree provides a flexible tax structure that not only complies with existing legislation, but also provides for possible changes in the future. Greentree caters for zero-rated and tax exempt customers and suppliers, and provides the necessary information to complete the Australian BAS Statement and NZ GST Return.

Accurate and faster data entry and complex cost allocation handling in Excel is key to the accounting team at JLF. Accounts Receivable invoice and credit transactions may be posted directly into Greentree from within Microsoft Excel.

“The data entry features means invoices no longer have to be manually checked which minimises human error and re-keying,” says Branton. “Now, we are more efficient with our time and our team now ‘audits’ the data rather than have lengthy data entry tasks.”

Since starting at JLF  Branton has realised the untapped potential of the Greentree product and is keen to get the most out of the system.

For example, JLF have pinpointed a potential use of Greentree, which will save time and create a complete business system from one source.  “By importing client and property data directly from our internal databases and Excel documents into Greentree, rather than re-keying the information, we will have all our vital information up to date and live to report on and analyse,” she says.

With the Payroll and Fixed Asset modules being the latest additions to the suite, JLF feel that by expanding their use of Greentree they will have many foreseeable benefits. There are also plans in place to install the Job Cost module to manage property development. 

“We are commencing some new property developments,” Branton explains, “and we can see the benefits of the Job cost module. I'm looking forward to Job Cost providing meaningful reporting about the state of each development compared to budgets as well as their profitability, which we have not been measuring with great ease nor accuracy on previous developments.”

For more information

www.greentree.com/customers/profiles/jlf.cfm

Graham Hill
(09) 366 3897
graham.hill@greentree.com
www.greentree.com

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