HOSPA Webinar - 3rd November 2022

Minimising The Automation, Efficiency and Time-Saving in Your Finance Team

 

ATTENDEES

​

Jane Pendlebury - CEO, HOSPA

Laurie Stanwick and Jo Fuller - Percipient
Tom Haley - The Other House

​

NOTES

​

Jane: Good morning and welcome everybody. Thank you very much for registering for today's masterclass with the team from Percipient and The Other House. It's entitled Automation Efficiency and Time-Saving in Your Finance Team. It's 10:00 AM and today is Thursday, November the third, 2022. And we are due to be live with you for around 45 minutes.

​

My name is Jane Pendlebury. I'm the CEO of HOSPA, the Hospitality Professionals Association. I'm delighted to be joined by Laurie and Jo from Percipient and Tom, who is using the Percipient solutions at The Other House, which if you haven't already visited, you really should. It's not one to miss.

​

Please do ask questions throughout using the Q&A option. If there's not enough time to answer all the queries, we will get back to you afterwards and there will be a recording and a summary of the key points available on the HOSPA website as soon as we can get it up there. Thank you for joining us. I'm now going to hand over to Laurie to explain a little bit more about Percipient solutions. Over to you, Laurie. 

 

Laurie: Wonderful. Thank you very much, Jane, and good morning everyone. Welcome to our session on automation efficiency, and time-saving within finance. So, a special warm welcome to some of our existing customers.

​

I know there are some on the webinar, so again, thank you all very much for joining. A huge welcome to everyone formally. My name is Laurie and I'm part of the team here at Percipient. My colleague Jo will run through some real-life examples of everything that we're going to discuss and cover in the next 10 to 15 minutes.

​

And then I'm delighted to say that we have Tom Haley, Chief Financial Officer at The Other House joining us, and Tom's going to talk about some real-life examples of efficiency, automation, and, crucially, how technology is at the forefront of the vision that The Other House has created for their guest experience.

I just want to do a very quick introduction to Percipient. I think it's really important that we establish what qualifies us to talk about automation and efficiency savings. So we are a Sage implementation specialist. We implement Sage finance systems in an array of hospitality organisations. We have an enormous amount of experience in hotels, from large chains to medium chains, to small boutique properties, to single properties, to multinational properties, and absolutely everything in between.

​

And I think that's what qualifies us to talk about this because it is most definitely a hot topic at the moment. It is most definitely at the forefront of people's rationale and decision-making when they start thinking about finance in terms of what we do. I mentioned that we implement Sage finance systems.

We base everything we do on USALI, so I'm sure everyone knows, but they’re, the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. So, by implementing us, leveraging the Sage technology. We have a simple M.O, and that is to help all of our hospitality customers work better, smarter, and faster.

It is that rudimental. It is that simple. That's what we want to deliver, and that's what we deliver to all of our customers. So what we're going to cover today, we are going to have a look at the industry in terms of technology and finance, where it's come from focusing on the last five to 10 years because it has changed enormously and crucially how technology has evolved to meet these changing needs.

​

Topics like integration, automation, and accessibility are really important now, arguably more than ever. So a snapshot and a synopsis of where we are now in the financial and digital transformation revolution. And I know that sounds very gimmicky, very marketing-led, but genuinely it is not. We are seeing this day-to-day when we're talking with customers - when we're talking with potential customers - finance and digital transformation are here.

​

It is a real thing and customers are embracing it as we do. Then I'm going to pass over to Jo, and Jo is going to give some real-life examples using Sage Intacct of efficiency and automation because a lot of these things that we're going to show today, some people may have seen, a lot of people will not have seen.

​

So they are here, they are available. They are ready to use at your disposal, should you choose to. And then arguably the most important part of the session we're going to hand over to Tom. And Tom's going to walk us through real-life examples of how The Other House is embracing technology at the forefront of their vision.

​

But Tom will also give some real-life examples of how he and his finance team are leveraging the technology at theirs.

​

So I'm sure we'll all agree that the technology in the finance sector is full of acronyms and it's also full of buzzwords. Without question. The buzzword at the moment is automation and efficiency. There is no doubt about it. I think for the past five, possibly 10 years, the buzzword has been the cloud. That's all we've heard about; cloud, cloud, cloud.

​

How can the cloud work? What is it? How can it work for me? How can it help me? And I think what we've seen is most definitely the acceptance of the cloud. So originally it was a theory if you like, but what we're seeing now is. It's been adopted, it's been accepted, and that is really, really important.

​

And Gartner echoes that. So Gartner is estimating at the moment, 83% of enterprises are now using cloud services. I think that's a further record by the fact that the global market for cloud services is worth 623 billion annually. It shows that the cloud is being accepted and customers are using it, and enterprises are using it.

​

I think what we also saw was a lot of people who originally embraced the cloud, be it in the last 12, or 24 months. They did so for the reasons of what we would call the tangible day-to-day reasons, the accessibility, the people accessing from any browser, anywhere. Also, things are more easily measured - things like no server being on, premises or a lack of requirement or necessity for an IT team internally.

​

I think once people accept those principles, they understand that the cloud just eradicates the need for all of those. They then start to move on to understand the more holistic benefits of the cloud, and that's the first time that automation comes into this presentation. And I think it's also important to stress that automation and efficiency go hand in hand.

​

The more you automate, the more efficient your finance team is by proxy.

​

So when it comes to evolution, I think there are two very important points to consider here. I think the first one is that your smaller finance management solutions and often legacy products, were designed at the time to perform a function. How do I do this? It could be, how do I track my fixed assets?

​

How do I process an invoice? How do I process a journal? They were designed with a function in mind and all products will allow you to perform this. What we've seen with the launch of what I call the second generation of financial management products, of which Sage Intacct is most definitely one that's evolved.

So it's gone from how can I do this? To, how can I do this quickly and efficiently? So modern technology and cloud platforms allow for what's important.

 

Because there's so much investment back into the cloud, back into the product, you know, a prime example is Sage invest about 25% of the R&D budget back into Sage Intacct.

​

So every single upgrade of the product means that you are getting the most up-to-date functionality. It could be better functionality, it could be a better user interface, and it could be the increasing emergence of AI. All of these things combine to make the technology at your disposal more efficient and more automated, therefore helping your finance team.

​

So it's not only core finance functionality, we're also seeing a huge increase in demand for other efficiency-saving tools. OCR scanning is a prime example. Five years ago we were asked about OCR scanning, probably once every six months. Now we're being asked about it on almost every project that we implement.

People are embracing the technology at their disposal. Again, it's all about the cloud. It's all about technology. It's all about leveraging what you can do to help your finance team to automate as much as possible and therefore make the team more efficient. 

​

It's also interesting that software authors, like Sage, are actively measuring efficiency savings amongst their entire customer base, so it's gone from measuring more tangible benefits to Sage measuring how efficient our products make our customers. And we're going to cover some of that in a minute. I think it would also be neglectful of me not to mention the impact of the pandemic. The pandemic most definitely influenced the hospitality sector. We all know this, but it also influenced the technology sector.

​

So when the lockdown was first announced, we received an influx of inquiries from customers and potential customers, talking about what I mentioned before about the tangible and measurable impact of our guys working at home. How do they access the system? And that's harder to do when you're on a legacy product if your product's sat on a server.

​

If your finance system is sitting on a server in your office and you need a VPN, or even if your team can't access it from home, that then evolved. The more we kind of all I don't want to use the term embrace, but we all got used to lockdown and we all got used to the different ways of working. I think that thought process changed from, we need our guys to access it from anywhere to actually, how can I get a leaner team to leverage this technology to perform more tasks? How can I use efficiency and the technology at my disposal to make the team more efficient? And that was obvious because the job vacancies in the hospitality sector peaked at about 174,000 between March and May this year.

​

That was according to the ONS. So we know that some teams are struggling. The O at the same ONS data also showed that there are 83% more vacancies across hospitality than there were from March to May 2019. So if you think about the technology, you think about the gaps, which you may need to fill in your finance team, how can you leverage that technology to fill those?

​

Do you need a full-time employee spending three days a week processing invoices, for example? And that's a real-life statistic. That was mentioned to us by a client about a year ago. So if you have space in your finance team and you want to make them more efficient, you don't want to increase the size of the team, cuz possibly you don't need to leverage the team.

​

Leverage what you have. Use the technology at your disposal to fix those gaps. This is increasingly important because BDOs are predicting a resurgence almost back to pre-pandemic levels of transactions within hospitality. So we know everyone's seen this coming back. Everyone's seen the bounceback of the hospitality industry, and it continues to rise. 

​

We know that occupancy rates are up, and average room rates are up. We know that this is a trend that is going to keep going. So how do you get ahead of the curve? How can you use technology to get ahead of that curve and make sure that you are in a position to service your organisation and crucially service your customers?

​

So the outcome is, I've mentioned this, there is a definitive shift towards improving finance, and team efficiency for the benefit of your organisation. That combined with growing confidence in technology, I keep saying this, but leverage what is at your disposal, leverage the technology that you have available.

And there is a willingness to embrace new technologies. You know, corporate performance management is most definitely replacing Excel spreadsheets for forecasting and resource scheduling. OCR scanning, without question, is being discussed more and more often. AI. Jo is going to cover some of this in a couple of minutes.

​

AI is not a thing of robots. It is, but it's not a finance function. How many people use Alexa, for example. We're seeing the emergence of AI within Sage Intacct more and more and more on every single release. And a term that is going to become more and more relevant, the continuous close. How can you use the technology to continually close your books so it's not a major process at the end of every period, be that a month, be it a quarter, or be it your financial year-end?

​

The continuous close is automated, as transaction entry, automated adjustments, automated bank rec and reporting. What can you do about this? Daily or weekly as opposed to just once a month or once a quarter. And the answer is you use the technology at your disposal and Jo going to show you some of that. So all of this, everything I've just covered is backed up by the numbers mentioned.

​

Software authors are now monitoring efficiency and saving. Across the entire Sage Intacct portfolio and customer base globally, Sage Intacct can reduce your month-end close time by up to 79%. Sage Intacct. Customers receive a 250% return on investment, an average of 50 new features per release for customers.

​

Again, you are getting this. Once every three months on your regular updates, 15 to 20% faster. Monthly reporting access to data is crucial. How can you get access to your data quickly and efficiently? 95% faster currency conversion rates. That's especially apt with the state of the pound at the moment.

​

But all of these things are there. Their real-life tangible benefits with Sage Intacct allow you to have, so the answer to the question at the start of the session at 10:00 AM is all about automation, all about efficiency, all about time-saving within your finance team. The answer is very simple. Leverage the technology, and make it work.

​

Technology. You don't work for technology. The technology works for you. And that is crucial. And like I said, all of this is available now. It's not a thing coming two, or three years down the line. It is here now. We are seeing it. Tom's going to cover a bit of it in his session. And again, that's a real-life example.

​

And Jo is going to show you some of what is available. As Jane said at the start of the session. Any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat box. We'll cover as many as we possibly can. Thank you for listening. I'll pass straight over to Jo. Okay. 

​

Jo: Thank you, Laurie. I'm just going to share my screen.

​

And hopefully, everybody can see Sage Intacct. We can. Excellent. So thank you Laurie for that excellent introduction. I'm going to hopefully bring to life some of the things that Laurie's been talking about with a live software demonstration. So, Sage Intacct is the next generation of financial management.

​

It uses the latest and the best technology that is emerging from Sage with four regulars. Updates a year that seamlessly happen. Pretested preconfigured. How you work. Today is how you work tomorrow. You get the greatest and the best technology, which you can leverage to improve efficiencies. It helps you transform your finance function.

​

And I'm going to put that into context with four main kinds of headings if you like. One is all about automated transaction entry. So do what you do, but do it quicker and smarter. We're also looking at automated adjustments. So how do we, how do we prove those transactions once they're in the system?

​

How do we know that they're right? How do we reconcile? The third element is going to be automated reporting. So once we've automated those transactions, and validated those transactions, how do we push them out to the organisation? And the last but not least, is the fourth element around dynamic controls, continuous audit, continuous close.

​

So this is a tall order in 15 minutes, so I'm going to go at quite a pace. So here it goes. So this is Sage Intacct. For those of you who have not seen Sage Intacct before you can access it from a browser. Just log on to the URL. We support two-factor authentications, so it's incredibly safe. So the first thing about automated transaction entry that I want to show you, Is all about the account's payable process.

​

We know that within hospitality we have to buy things, we have to pay suppliers, and that is a continual process. We also know that quite a lot of you are using industry-specific pro products, particularly for the F&B. Procurement side you know, that punches out to websites,et cetera.

​

But this AP automation can step in at that process, or it can step in for consumables, for things that are non-F&B. The choice is yours. Ultimately what we end up with is a supplier invoice, but the transaction automation is how do we get that supplier invoice onto the system and save 70% of our time whilst doing it well?

​

The answer is simple. It's what we call accounts payable automation. So this is the accounts payable automation tool that sits within Sage Intacct. It allows invoices to either have a physical copy, which you can put into a scanner, or you can have it forwarded to an email queue. For example, you know, accounts@perfecthospitality.com.

​

Once that email hits the system, the system will read the PDF. And I've got an example here, and it will do several different things depending on where you are stepping into the process. If you haven't got an order for that, I see you're not using any specific ordering, you're just getting F&B invoices.

​

Quite a VA a lot of our customers do. What you don't have to do is go in and code each line. The system will read the PDF, it reads the metadata. It will code the line appropriately. There are also workflow rules here that will allow you to send that off automatically to an approver. So this is an approver that's logged on.

He's opened up this Valley Fresco invoice. And we can either approve or we can reject if we are measuring that or monitoring that against a PO system, be it your system or Sage Intacct purchase orders. I can see what the variance is. You can see straight away there's a variance. Maybe that's the reason why I've got this invoice for authorization.

​

We can have rules against different workflows for F&B versus different workflows for CapEx, I can also go and view the PDF. Of the purchase invoice. So I know there was a variance and I can see exactly what that variance is. If I'm happy to approve that, I can either approve, eject, reject or skip to the next invoice.

In this instance, I'm going to approve that. That's an approval successful, and then obviously it jumps me to the next invoice that I need to. The next stage from that is as soon as it's approved, it then goes into Sage Gen Tap because that needs to be approved. So you can see here that's the Valley Fresco invoice.

​

Not only is it sent automatically though, but we've also put it through a kind of draft status, so I can approve that. Or we can make it direct for payment, The choice is yours. We can also attach the URL so we can see at any point in time you know, the invoice data. And if a departmental manager or group F&B manager has a problem with that invoice, maybe he is looking at his reports, he's drilled down to the detail, he can act, actually go through to the purchasing function and say, you know, Pauline purchaser can you check that this is okay?

​

Okay. What this does then is if I share that it is linked with the, he said, she said, against this particular invoice. So this is an example of the automation and collaboration which sits within Intacct. It doesn't end there though with automated transaction entry. What we do have is the ability, once we pay invoices, to automate that back payment directly through to your bank account, depending on whatever bank account you are looking at.

​

It will also automate your bank reconciliations. We know that within hospitality, bank reconciliations are kind of always an issue. So with its automated bank feeds, it doesn't matter which bank account you are looking at if I just go into this one here. Let's just go into cash management and current accounts, for example.

So we link into all of the UK banks. So I just link my Sage in a tap bank account to the Sage Banking Cloud, and this will be for automatic statement download. Let's just look at some of the banks here. We want the United Kingdom. There we go. So these are the kind of main banks, but we've also got all of the other banks.

​

You know, we just kind of search ones. These are the most popular ones. So once they're linked in, then we create a download daily of the statement, and this automatically helps towards this continuous close. So this is my bank statement. This bank statement doesn't standard create transactions against your Sage Intacct bank.

​

But can, So if we are receiving payments from Amex when we link into the property management system and that link is automated, be it opera, guest line, stay in touch, whatever property management system you have, we bring in those revenue journals. If those revenue journals are for things like Amex or some of the other payment providers, we put them into a control account and release the amount to the bank account from the statement.

​

This takes all of the headaches out of your bank reconciliations, trying to journal off charges to reconcile the bank account. Here's an example. So if I just look at my NatWest account, we've also got rule sets. We talked about the emergence of machine learning. So we have rule sets that will pick up transactions and if they are, let's say, for example, payments from payment providers, automatically do that journal for you or write off bank interest and all of that good stuff. 

Our customers generally find that it increases efficiency at least by 60%. In their bank reconciliation. And of course, if you are reconciling your bank account on a daily, or weekly, rather than waiting till the end of the month, it means that you can close your accounts quickly. So again, from here I'm downloading my bank statement and I'm seeing two sides.

​

So I'm seeing some match transactions from my Intacct side match transactions from my bank side. If there are transactions that Sage Intacct just simply doesn't know about, there are no rules that we can automate on the bank import to create them, then we can do everything we need to from a single screen.

There is no coming out of the reconciliation. And then doing the transaction, coming back in, there's no backwards and forwards. It is a seamless screen for transaction entry. Plus the automated bank rules streamline that particular item. One of the other things for transaction automation here is we have a journal upload, so payroll journals, we link into things like fourth ho hospitality.

​

For downloading payroll journals. But there might be an instance where the data that you've got is not in the right format. You might need to put it into a spreadsheet or we do it at the recipient if you copy and paste it into our journal template upload, we create the file and then we go back into the software.

And if I just go into, let's say the general ledger and into general entries I have. If I just move my screen here, I have an import function so I can import that. I pick up my particular file that is saved on my desktop and click on it. And that then seamlessly imports that journal. You can see here that that journal has now been imported successfully for integration into property management systems.

​

So if your property management system has an app Or a web service, we link directly for those that don't, and not all two property management systems are the same. Experience has told us that. And you have to download, you know, a CSV file. We can even automate that CSV upload. So seamless automation and transaction automation.

​

The second part here is really around automated kinds of adjustments. What we do have in the system is what we call a consolidation function. So you can see here if I just go into setup and books, I have got multi properties within my demo environment and I can see that I've got entities to consolidate.

​

So I'm consolidating one property in my chain of restaurants. Into my console south. I then have console North. Now, this will consolidate, it will consolidate to multiple base currencies, and it will also do intercompany eliminations for you. So at any point in time, that console can be run on an automated basis.

​

So if I just go into consolidation here and I can set up a recurrence so that consolidation can happen daily, weekly, or monthly. So again, helping this continuous close, constantly doing those intercompany eliminations. Also for management charges that are built back through the individual proper. We have what we call an intercompany bill back function, which lets you stay at your management company header company, and then push all of those either journals across or if they, if they're separate back groups and need individual invoices, we can create a sales invoice and a purchase invoice respectively, again, helping all of that continuous close and process automat.

​

Last but not least is automated reporting. The PTA resistance, if you like, I've left the best till last. So if we go into my CFO's top level we provide you with dashboards. As Laurie said, we have useful within. Call, so you usefully chart accounts, all of your department headers and all of your department schedules as well.

​

We've got many useful reports. What we're also bringing through because we link into property management systems, is we're bringing things through the number of rooms available, the number of rooms occupied, we can work out and give you a dashboard. Of the ADR, the average daily rate, or the PR you know, the revenue per available room.

​

We can also work out the occupancy. So these links with our property management systems are automated, so they come through statistical journals. We've even brought things like kilowatt hours through you know, by area to see what the killer is, what our usage is by floor, by area and so on. We can also see that we've got revenue general expenses.

​

We've got an amazing report writer that sits within here where we can do a profit and loss. With a budget. We can do a cash flow forecast and so on. It's courses for horses really because we have different types of dashboards for different types of users. So maybe the group F&B manager needs to see something completely different.

​

So you can see here, He's got his general expenses, his wages, costs, his revenue, and the number of covers these sad faces means that the revenue is down, or our wages cost is, is up either from the prior period or the prior month. A single click allows us to drill down into the details so he can see that for one of the hotels, or he could see that for the other hotel and do a comparison.

​

So even though is the group F and B manager and he has five restaurants in each hotel, we can cluster these together to give him an individual view. So we can see that obviously, the number of covers is up. If he wanted to aggregate the two together, we just look at all hotels within the group or all restaurants of a certain size.

​

And we can see the number of covers is up. We can also bring through things like you know, kind of health club and spa details. So the number of members, the number of levers, the number of visits, any kind of refurbs that are going on. We've got a full project system in there as well. What we also have is not only the standard dashboarding, but we have the advanced BI capability that sits within Sage Intacct as well.

​

So it allows you to kind of filter for a particular area. This is looking at age debtors and supplier analysis. We've also got things like guest ratings. So we are looking at the number of guest visits, the number of rooms occupied, and our average rating. So, this is what we call the Interactive Visual Explorer and is preconfigured for Sage Intacct.

​

Hopefully, that's given you a little whirlwind of Sage Intacct. 15 minutes is such a short period, but hopefully, it's shown you how with Sage Intacct, we can automate transactions, we can automate adjustments. We've got automated reporting and dashboarding and also give you those dynamic controls.

Okay, I'm going to hand over now to Tom and I'm going to stop.

​

Tom: Thanks very much for that, Jo. It was great, great to see it all, all in action. I thought that the best thing for me to do was to give an introduction to The Other House and then so much of what I'm. It talks about what you've covered and I will just pick up on a few bits and then maybe we can get to the questions.

But, we've put a little video together that will give you an overview of The Other House. And I think that the thing that I'd ask you just to think about is we, we are a tech-led organisation and we, therefore, have implemented Sage Intacct to be a key component of that but just showing how it all fits in the end to end.

And then I'll pick up a few bits from there. Please shout at Jo or Laurie if you can't hear it. But when we tested it earlier, it did work. 

​

[Video]: The brief given to the London-based design studio was to create a unique and clearly differentiated brand identity. It required rethinking traditional hospitality, creating a new language, and reflecting the core values of the modern traveller in an age of slowness.

​

And technology. The Other House exists, so people going places can live like a resident, whether it's a night or a year. Our guests are interested in global issues, sustainability, and the planet. They're also independent. 

​

Engaged and aspirational. Always looking for new experiences. To deliver this, we identified four guiding principles to make it home, to give control, to create memorable experiences, and to create a positive impact, all aspects of the visual identity.

​

Contribute to these values. The branding is both contemporary and fun. The visuals are interactive and bold, impactful and witty, perfect for our residents who are wise as now and cured as a monkey.

​

Tom: Perfect. Hopefully, that can do more justice in one minute, and 34 seconds than I could have tried to, to have achieved. So I think that what I'd also add is that we have just opened The Other House, South Kensington. We are just about to start building work on our co-garden site. And we have also got another site in Belgravia that we.

​

Purchased and they're now looking to do so. So we need to station Intacct supporters through all parts of the life cycle. But really when we set out, we set out with an entirely blank canvas. So we come at this from a different angle people, but what we did to borrow one of Laurie's favourite phrases is, is to look at the best of breed of services.

​

Out there. And we have I think 38 systems that we knit together to make this whole operation stand up and this idea of being tech-led and people-light is, Inherent to everything that we do. So it's not just the finance function. So I was smiling, Laurie, when I was re-looking at all your efficiencies.

​

We kind of bake those in to start with. So it's not like I feel those efficiencies we just didn't start witH lots of people, to begin with. But I think if I just take you through what I feel is our sort of principles of where we are, which goes into the bits that were mentioned in the video at the feel at home to be in control, make a lasting impression, and build it better.

​

I think of the guiding principle. I try to impact him, we want an end-to-end finance function. So I see that finances and those controls start with the people who are making decisions on a day-to-day basis and owning their P&L So the idea that information when it lands in the finance function lands to us in a good, coherent manner in the right place in our accounts.

​

So, We want to give people the best tools so that they can self-serve and they can drive forward their business performance. And in return, we want the information to come back to us so that we talk a lot about landing the data right the first time. And again, picking up on what you were saying, Laurie, about good days, leading to good months, which leads to good close, which leads to good information and then.

​

To your point, Jo, I think that the thing that I'm happy with most is the fact that when we land our books and we do our quarterly management accounts, it is the click of a button and we have a property side of a business and operations side of the business. Those two things are done at the click of a button, and I had the pleasure before we had fully implemented Station TAC to try to pull those two things together in Excel. And it was not pleasant when there weren't enough people, but now it's done and it's a complete mind shift change, and you can have a conversation with someone about how much historical data matters to them. And we are such a forward-looking business, but it's something that needs to get done.

​

It gets done automatically, and we all move on from it. And to be able to put that in the box is such a fantastic thing for us and it allows us to focus on the value added. So I think the value-added tasks in a small team are absolutely crucial things. And so I see the technology allows us to have good experienced people providing the checks and balances over the top and all the work that you have over those automated reconciliations and all those sorts of things as an enabler to allow a skilled person to actually take that stuff forward. I think where, where I would say it really started to make an impact was when I was describing to our CEO all of these things.

​

This canvas, this blank canvas we started with and talking about the app that we are going to have, which will allow you to pull the lift. It will allow you to arrange dry cleaning. It will allow you to order your food to your table but also order your room service to find out what's going on in the local area, to book a nanny service, to book it, and to try and find out where the local dentist is.

​

All of that will be available at your fingertips. As well as understanding how much energy you are using in the building and in your room in time. So all of this stuff is there. But when I started to talk to Naomi about it, she said one day I realise now that this back office integration is more important than our app.

And, actually having a system behind the facade of a beautiful app that works and fully integrates is more powerful to us than actually having that ability for people. For our guests, we call residents because we're a residents club, but our residents self-serve themselves.

​

But actually being able to have that stack that integrates and, and works across all levels is going to be absolutely crucial to us because I have a small, everyone else has a small team. There isn't the ability to pick things up. And so that is probably the hardest thing for us is that when either something goes wrong or we're working on our integrations or just new things come up, we don't always have the capacity to then deal with that.

​

But, that means that we have to absolutely double down on getting it right, making sure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities to land this stuff correctly for us. And then I think, the point that Jo was picking up data is live. It is a live close, but it is a, therefore, a mind shift, mind shift switch to actually people are going to receive this data at the same time as me.

​

So if my CEO, if my GM, if someone has seen this data before me, I may be coming into work and someone may have already read it and asked me a question, whereas before, what you do is you build it all up, you build your little story and then you go and present it. Whereas actually now it's like, have you thought about this?

​

Have you thought about that? And that's going to present its own challenge. And that actually might be important. But do I think it's the most important thing and we need to then work out how that is? So that journey is going to be incredibly interesting. And I think the other part of it with the blank canvas is my background's working in banking and you start with a pretty app and then as you go further and further back, eventually there's someone with some sticky tape holding about four systems together, and you have to reconcile across those systems.

​

And you have to get it right cause it's actually people's money so the level of care is at a higher level than in the hospitality industry. And, they like to find blanks, which and all those sorts of things. But you always sit there and say, Well, if I was in charge, I'd do it like this and I get it right.

​

And then I came in here and they said, Brilliant. Here's a blank canvas. Do you want to go and get it right? And you're like, Yep, I'd love to. And there is that absolute drive, to get that right. And you sit there some days and think if it doesn't get right and we've got these great tools, is it me, or is it the tool?

​

And I think the other thing I would say about the work that we've done with Percipient, has been fantastic in terms of leading us on this journey with staging tactics. We have all these systems and they all talk a good game. And you look at the sat tap, which actually delivers on the talk. And actually, our problem is often the miss from another system that doesn't deliver quite what we need it to deliver. And how do we then work with a partner? With, precipitate, how do we work with people to get the stuff that we need to and sort of the sort of excuses kind of sit elsewhere with, with systems?

​

And I think that's a really, really important part of it as well. And that I think is going to be absolutely crucial. It doesn't sit within, say, Intacct. It's about other things. And I think the final thing I'd probably say, on all of this is the simplest way I can describe staging taxes like Lego, you can make it do anything you want it to do.

​

You can build anything you want it to build and you can get it to look at all different ways. You've just got to spend the time building it and it will then allow you to do all of those sorts of things. And so it is about that. To make it where you want it to be. And we are very, very much on that journey.

​

We have a long way to go on there, but we know that we can get ourselves there. So I'm conscious of time and hopefully, I've covered some of the things that would cover things off, but, happy to take questions if there's time. Or I'll put it back to you, Jane, or I'll go back on mute.

​

Jane: Well, we are coming towards the end of the time but that was really interesting. I learned a lot from all three of you actually. So Thank you and thank you all for listening. Then, I also need to thank the team behind the scenes at Percipient today for helping put this together and to you, Tom, especially for taking your valuable time to talk to us and share that beautiful video.

​

I just need to remind everyone to remember that the opinions expressed today are exactly that, opinions and should be treated as such. If you need formal advice, then please approach your financial advisor or come to me at HOSPA for a referral. If you would like an introduction to any of our speakers today, then I'd be happy to make that connection. Percipient are playing a key part in our annual conference host space, which is on the 17th of November at the Royal Lancaster. So please register to join us if you haven't already. Percipient are going to be running a workshop on the day, so a great opportunity to meet the team face to face.

​

And I think Tom's going to be there too. The other thing I'll mention is we are also doing an update to the uniform system of accounts. It's how you pronounce it. I always call it USALI, whatever it is, a uniform system of accounts. We are doing an update during the day at the whole space which Laurie has referred to as this 12th edition coming out.

​

Next year, hopefully, you'll be able to find recordings of all of our webinars. And master classes with a summary of the key points on hospa.org. Today's webinar should be uploaded within the next few days. But it just remains to me to say thank you again, all for listening. Thank you very much to the brilliant speakers and the content and if you have any questions that you want to send in afterwards, that's fine as well, either directly to the team or come by me if that's easier.

​

Thank you all very much and goodbye.

​

​