Case Studies
The Kings of Finance Control
Reiner Low
CFO, Storage King Australia & New Zealand
"Storage King Australia & New Zealand has relied on Zudello for over 2 years now and uses the Platform across all managed entities and locations. We find the Zudello team very responsive and excellent to work with and the Platform has delivered significant efficiencies, management and control for our finance and operation teams. The Platform’s workflow is extremely flexible and we have configured it to suit our unique business needs and processes. We find Zudello easy to use, even when working remotely on a laptop or mobile phone.”
The Rulers of the Australasian Storage Category
Storage King is an iconic brand in Australia and New Zealand. With over 200 storage facilities throughout the two countries, Storage King is Australasia's most recognised self- storage company, providing a wide range of secure and affordable storage solutions to meet the needs of individuals, households, and businesses.
When Abacus Group acquired Storage King Australia & New Zealand in 2020, they knew that having a smooth and efficient operation for customers could only be delivered through smooth and efficient internal processes. But, consolidating Storage King into a publicly listed company, with very different back office systems - particularly finance systems - was a major operational challenge for the business.
“Storage King and Abacus had utilised different AP systems in the past. And neither really worked well for Storage King's business in Australasia. So, I had the chance to look around and find a better solution,” says Reiner Low, Chief Finance Officer of Storage King Australia & New Zealand. We wanted one single system that fit well with the current needs, but could also evolve and scale as the business grew.”
Finding a Solution for
the Future
Processing over 6,000 invoices per month, and having visibility and control over their 200 locations was a massive challenge before implementing Zudello. “When we started looking around for a single solution, we found that there were many accounting systems out there. But not all of them would be able to suit what the business requires - be it the structure, the technical requirements, the business requirements - so the right solution had to be flexible enough to meet those requirements,” says Reiner.
“Some systems are very rigid. You actually have to change the business process in order to fit the system, which is not ideal. So we looked for something that could go the other way, flexible enough to fit the business process. Zudello literally moulds itself to our business systems and processes. We found this refreshingly unique and it means we can run and evolve our business how we want, without being constrained by limitations in the finance operations software."
The Factors that led Storage King Australia & New Zealand to Select Zudello
As with many business partnerships, Zudello was introduced by a trusted source. The references for Zudello showed they had met the kinds of challenges that Storage King was facing before, in replacing several outdated systems with one that is fit for the future.
“When we met with Zudello, what impressed us straight away was their understanding of the requirements of accounting, as well as IT systems, which is quite rare in the industry,” says Reiner.
“With other options that we considered, the technical people didn’t quite understand accounting. They didn’t quite understand what the requirements were from an accounting perspective. But, when we talked to accounting people, obviously they didn’t quite understand the technical side of things on the IT side.”
A lot of the solutions that were presented by others to Storage King were quite locked down when it came to workflows. But with Zudello, the customer outlines the desired workflow and they create it.
“I think one of the beauties of Zudello is that you can approve through the app or email - either on your computer or on-the-go on your mobile phone. You don't have to even log in the system - and you don’t even need to be in the office,” continues Reiner. “We didn’t come across any other solution that offeredthat. You always have to log in the system. And I say the flexibility of the workflow means that we can customise it to the extent that you can delegate new approvers when staff are on leave.”
“That is often one of the biggest pain points for finance teams. It's when you get stuck in the approval phase and it doesn't move, and you start having to chase people to get the approval moving. No one has time to chase anyone.”
“And Zudello has a seamless integration with our financial system which really helps to streamline the processes.”
Zudello prides themselves in the receptiveness of the team. “I think we're very fortunate that we have the senior team there with us throughout the implementation, as well as supporting us directly after that. So any issues that we have, we can reach out to resolve it quickly.”
In the selection of a partner, Storage King purposely went local because of the tax nuances. “It's extremely important because of the complexity of our regulatory environment in terms of tax accounting. The tax here has a lot of nuances: GST, income tax ... Zudello is able to help us comply with Australian and New Zealand’s requirements.”
Results
Efficiency
The volume of invoices has grown by about 25%, but with Zudello, Storage King can manage that increased workload with the same finance team headcount.
Zudello saves us by not having to bring in new finance staff. Also by streamlining the AP processes and having that fully custom fit to the business' workflows, it is saving us time costs from the entire end to end AP process, including the time spent on processing and approving the invoices.
Accuracy
With Zudello’s “Cognitive Vision” powering their machine learning, the accuracy of data input reaches 95%.
“With this level of accuracy it means we are saving a huge amount of time every day. Our previous solution performed at about 60% accuracy so the difference makes a huge impact with 6,000 invoices per month and each one taking 10-15 minutes previously to manually input."
Buy-in from the Business
With such a major corporate event as an acquisition, effective change management is crucial. “It was quite a stressful time, with so many major decisions being made - that would impact on the future of the business.”
“When we implemented the AP automation solution of Zudello for the business, there was pressure to make sure this was the right decision, and one that would demonstrate immediate benefits across the business. Zudello really came through - which built great confidence in the Finance team with the Board, and gave us the licence to expand our remit with Zudello over time,” says Reiner.
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