Company Profile
Bainbridge Lewis is a team of chartered accountants who offer a range of client focused accountancy services to start ups and SME’s in Brighton and Hove. Established in 2010 by Carol Lewis and Gail Bainbridge the business has given itself the reputation of ‘a young, approachable and highly professional accountancy practice’.
Business Situation
Bainbridge Lewis prides itself on being client focused and constantly in contact with its clients. Therefore a system which holds client information and efficiently organises this information to be available as and when needed is essential. It is also essential that Bainbridge Lewis are alerted of looming deadlines to avoid late penalties.
Technical Situation
As well as wanting to invest in CRM software to manage client information, emails and other related documents, Bainbridge Lewis were having problems with their emails which were not syncing. Using their BlackBerrys is practical and handy for business but emails sent from their BlackBerrys were not appearing in Outlook which was making emailing an inefficient and unorganised form of communication.
Solution
When Bainbridge Lewis came to us they required CRM software and a document management system. We were able to offer them one simple package which is Efficy CRM. This allows them to manage contacts, record the services they offer to their clients and to also remind them of what they need to do for their clients and when. They are reminded of VAT returns, to process annual returns and to submit annual accounts and personal tax returns.
To solve the email issue we were happy to provide hosted MS Exchange email accounts which were set up to work with both BlackBerrys and their Outlook accounts making email syncing run perfectly.
However, we didn’t stop there and fully synchronized contacts and diary entries between the MS Exchange email accounts and Efficy so now the two systems work hand in hand for maximum efficiency.
Outcome
Besides providing an incredibly efficient way of organising their client information and improving their client relationships, the Efficy CRM system can also save Bainbridge Lewis money. Bainbridge Lewis promise clients they will pay any late filing penalties if Bainbridge Lewis don’t submit returns and accounts on time. However, Carol Lewis from Bainbridge Lewis tells how we ‘have tailored Efficy so that it can monitor client deadlines and provides us with a dashboard showing jobs to be completed’ This means late penalties will be a thing of the past. As their business has been rapidly growing over the past year this feature has been ‘invaluable’ to them.
‘The reason we chose Efficy for our CRM system was because of the friendly personal service offered by Pete and his team’.