HOSPA Webinar - 14th December, 2020

Infor SunSystems - Not just for the big boys

HOSPA board members will be sharing their insights on the effect of COVID-19 on the hospitality sector and offer advice and tips on minimising the impact on your business.

Topics will range from revenue management to staffing, to employer liabilities. We will discuss the technology headaches incurred during the lockdown period and the new tech that hospitality venues may need for re-opening. Jane Pendlebury will be joined by David Pryde, Professor Peter Jones, Michael Heyward and Rob Maloney.

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ATTENDEES

• [JP] Jane Pendlebury - HOSPA

• [CM] Calum McIndoe - Infor

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NOTES

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JP: Good morning everybody, and thank you for joining us. Today we’re talking to Calum from Infor, and the title of today's webinar is Sun Systems: No Longer Just for the Big Boys.

 

It's 10:00 AM on Monday the 12th of December 2022 and it's a cold and snowy day in the UK. We're due to be live with you for around 30 to 40 minutes maximum, and we are welcoming questions throughout, so I guess the timing will depend on how many questions we get. My name is Jane Pendlebury. I'm the CEO of HOSPA, the Hospitality Professionals Association.

 

I'm delighted to be joined by Calum McIndoe today. We will be talking, and then we’ll be answering any questions at the end. And we’ll also be recording this session with a summary of the key points, and that should be available on the website afterwards. So let's just dive straight in. Calum – Sun Systems is No Longer Just for the Big Boys. It's an interesting title. What did you mean by that?

 

CM: Ah, well good morning, Jane. First of all, yes, it's a cold and frosty morning here as well. Yeah, the Sun System's no longer for the big boys. What I probably want to do is take that back a little bit and talk about software development, because that's key, in the answer.

 

When you develop software, you look at it from different perspectives. When you have a new release you're going to look at it from fiscal requirements. What are the legal requirements within that region? You're going to look at it from your customers because your customers come to you and say, we'd like this new feature, this new functionality. We'll look at it from the industry. What does the industry require? That's new. But also you look at the infrastructure.

 

What's the structure that's behind the application software? And one big thing we've done recently is we've changed the way and the underlying technology is within Sun Systems. And what it means is that the minimum user count has been reduced.

 

So Sun Systems has been used by quite large organisations in big hotels for some time, and there are a lot of smaller hotels out there that just couldn't afford it because they didn't want to have 10, 12, or 14 users. They just want a couple of users to work with Sun Systems. And this new underlying infrastructure allows us to bring down the total cost of ownership.

So just our hotel, 50 bedrooms, a few users in accounts, and they want to access the software and it's now available to them in a cost-effective fashion.

 

JP: Ah, brilliant. Okay. That's interesting. And you mentioned hotels there. Is it just for hospitality? Is there a different module for hospitality, or is it the same product across multiple industries?

 

CM: No, you're quite right. Sun Systems is available for multiple industries. I only work in Hospitality, you know, that's my game. But it's used in lots of different industries. It's used in oil and gas, not-for-profit social housing, et cetera, et cetera. At the end of the day, accounting systems and accounting systems, there are lots out there, and we all do the same sort of thing. Accounting hasn't changed for quite some time. What makes us a little bit different within hospitality is how we provide a predefined database within Sun Systems for hospitality. It's built on the new Usali, the uniform system of accounts for the logic industry. So we go to the hotel and we drop a database in.

 

So what it does are a few things. It's a quicker time to value because you don't have to start from scratch building a brand-new chart of accounts. How are you going to report? You don't have to think about that. We've thought about it all for you. It's on new salary 11 today. You just tell the 11 comes out in 23 as we know, and we'll adapt to that new way of reporting for 23, for 2012 when that comes out. So it speeds up the process. and it means that we're reporting in the same way as all the other hotels are reporting out of the box. So that's really what makes it a little bit different.

 

JP: And if somebody isn't necessarily bound by the rules of the Usali, if it's not in their management contract, can they make edits to that and tweak it to suit their own unique business?

 

CM: Absolutely. We've got many hotel groups who don't want to use your salary. That's not how they report. Maybe they're a management company or maybe they see themselves more as a building company and being hotels just because of the size. So the chart of accounts is completely up to them how they want to report. Most of the hotels that we work with like the fact that it's predefined for them. They don't have to think about it, but yes. They don't have to follow that convention if they don't need to. They can do exactly what they want.

 

JP: Brilliant. Okay. And it's been around quite a long time, hasn't it?

I seem to think that I don't remember a life without Sun Systems having a product out there, but it could be that my mind's playing tricks on me.

 

CM: It's not a new solution. And most accounting systems have been about for quite some time. Sun Systems came into the Infor family for a company called Systems Union quite some time ago. So that the core software, if you like, the core code goes back some 20-odd years. It's been there for some time. But fundamentally, accounting hasn't changed.

 

It's still debits and credits and reporting, and it's a financial statement, so that hasn't changed in all that time. What has changed is how we interact with the software. So we used to get up in the morning, have breakfast, go into the office, run up, bring you, set up our computer, and sit at our desks all day long. And that would be us accessing the software. But these days, you get downstairs for your conflicts and over your conflicts. You'll look at your phone. An accessed accounting system. You'll see if there are any authorizations to be made. You'll see if there are any updates, and see if any changes have happened, and it can be real-time.

 

You might look at it on the phone and on the bus in London to work, and it's the same session you left after having your conflicts. And then when you get to your office, you might access it on your laptop, which you then move around the building because you then got that with you. So how we access the software has very much changed over the years. It's much more.

 

JP: Yes, that's key. And, so many people were forced to develop those things during the pandemic. But the systems that were able to have that flexibility did come to Infor when suddenly this work-from-home thing came about. So is it a UK-based system or a global system?

 

CM: Fundamentally, it's a UK-based system, so yes, the development shop, the main development guys team, the head of product, et cetera, set out west of London in our Farmborough office. Also, the head of our global support sits there as well, and the support team sits there. But we are backed up by quite a large organisation at Infor, so the solution is around the world.

 

So I have got hotel groups, although based in London, they've got hotels which are in South America and North America, in AsiaPac, et cetera, utilising the same system. What you do have, although it's a UK-based system, very much complies with what needs it needs to comply with around the world. So local taxation, local regulations. So it could be the CDG for France, the, again, configuration of central reporting for France. That could be the Italian reporting of Brazil reporting multicurrency, multilingual.

 

So in the Middle East, of course, it reads the other way around, right to left. All those things are in the background. Triangulation of reporting currency, so things like that. So as an organisation based in the UK, the core reporting could be in pounds, which is fine because that's a UK-based company, but in France, they'll report in Euros and in North America they're going to report in dollars. But you have to have that base currency, which all report back into, so, yes, it is a UK-based solution. Yes, we're head office here. It is a global solution which is deployed around the world.

 

JP: Okay. That's good. It's good to know. It's nice to know we still have some businesses going on here in the UK. So, you mentioned hotels you've re-referenced a few London based and globally based. If in a hotel environment, obviously, it's going to sit in the accounts office, it's going to do, as you mentioned, just the normal accounting functions. Where does it sit in the whole architecture of the whole system stack? In a typical hotel?

 

CM: they can be a whole ecosystem. I, and again, that's changed over the years. So, you know, many moons ago, the accounting system used to just sit in the accounting office on the PC in there, and that's where the accountants accessed the system and reported from. But now, with many wholesale systems, it's part of our much larger ecosystem. So it's connecting into a multitude of systems.

 

So yes, the financial system sits at the core because that's your core reporting if you like. That's also going to start bringing information in from a whole multitude of systems. So you're going to pull information in from your property management system because that's your sales, which in turn is bringing information in from your outlets, from your point of sales solutions, and bringing information in from there. Depending on the hotel, you may have a spa, you may have golf, you may have other sports facilities, and you may have sales and catering, which again, may come directly into the financial system or it may come through the property management system. So you're bringing information in from all these different revenue-generating centres. Provide the reporting from the other side. Also, though, you've got to think about budgeting, forecasting, and planning. You know, what am I looking at? And especially over the past couple of years when forecasting has become, you know, a weekly if not daily thing, you know what's going to happen.

 

I've got to forecast recast on a continued basis. So it's not only pulling information in, from various outlets and various systems. Is also pushing information out onto different systems like budgeting, forecasting, and planning. And then, in turn, we're gonna take information from perhaps payroll, from revenue management systems to give a complete holistic report of the hotel on a continued basis and real-time. It's got to be quick speaking to, you know, CFOs in the industry, that's the biggest thing they have is I need information, I need it.

 

JP: Absolutely. Yes. We don't want that end-of-month going on for days and days on end as used to be and, and still is in some instances as well. So I know, from my experiences speaking to hotel finance people, when the information is coming across from, say, the PMMS, which I guess is probably the biggest interface into the system, can the accountant look at that information and approve it before they import it in, or is it completely automated?

 

CM: It can work in both ways, but typically what will happen is you're quite correct. You'll look at the information before it comes in and then you'll authorise that as it comes to a staging post. If you like information that comes in a self-check and then brings it into the accounting system will that change? Will it change with revenue management systems? If you think about it. So within revenue management systems, it used to be that the recommendations would come into the revenue management system.

 

The revenue manager would then authorise those and then make them live. And then after a while, they figured out, do you know what all I'm doing is wasting 20 minutes checking this because every day it's correct and every day it's fine. And Self-confidence comes into it and eventually says, why am I checking this? Let's just bring the information in. But both are completely valid ways of bringing data into the financial world.

 

JP: So, yes, and I'm sure that varies from hotel to hotel regardless of their size. But there'll be some accountants who are very keen just to make sure that it is exactly as they want to see it. And others that will just be, well, let's get it all and if there are any anomalies we can work it out. So it's nice to have that flexibility. I think that's probably quite an important thing for many of the accountants that I deal with. So is it based on premise? I guess not if you're saying you can look at it when you're having your conflicts at home. Is it in the cloud?

 

CM: Yes, it's in the cloud these days. We still do have some implementations which are on-premise. But we are actively looking to these guys and especially now that we can bring that down to individual properties to move them into the cloud. And it's got lots and lots of advantages, which is a whole different telephone call, a whole different meeting on that one. Why the cloud, what does the cloud mean? Well, when you say the cloud people kind of, they look upwards to the sky. It's not up there guys. It's actually, it's a data centre somewhere.

 

It's a physical building somewhere. But why do we move there? And I'm going to steal an analogy from Jeremy Ward who had a great analogy. He likened it to in the industrial revolution, big factories had their own generation of electricity and they produced their power for their own factory because that's just the way you did it. And then as the main grid came along, they thought, well, what? Why are we doing this for ourselves when I can just hook into, you know, what's next door and let them produce it for us? So in the same way, cloud computing, yes, you can have it on property. But you've got people like Azure, and Amazon, who that's their job to build this stuff and build it in the cloud. Why not let them have problems with security, with updates, with various checking, and give it to them. That's their job, and they do it very, very, very well. So yes, it's a cloud-based solution and many advantages are going to the cloud. Yes.

 

JP: Absolutely. I'm sure most people will have appreciated that as well over recent years. Just to remind people, I'm looking at our attendees here and there are a fair few people who are involved directly, in finance roles. So just to encourage you to ask any questions if there are any, haven't had any in yet, but would welcome any questions from the audience if you have any. I'm sure there's going to be something specific to your operation that I won't think to ask. So, it is an accounting system. What else does it do other than accounting? I know we'll move on to what Infor does as well. But, Sun Systems, which modules do you have within accounting? Is it more than just an accounting system?

 

CM: So, yes, it is more than just an accounting system. So with this kind of basic package, if you like, you get everything in there that you're required to run the business. So you get the core accounting and the basic accounting functions. You get multiple language packs, so you know, even if you're not abroad, but you've got a user who wants to use it in German or French. So you get multiple language packs and multiple currencies are also within there as well. So you get the ability to receive or pay within a foreign currency if you're buying goods, et cetera, from a different country. So that's all-inclusive things like fixed assets would be inclusive as well. So depreciation. Depreciation of the fixtures and the fittings within the property. You know, what did you buy? How long did you depreciate over? What's the end residual value when you take it off your books? That's all within there. Corporate allocations can be within there as well. Perhaps you've got two hotels and maybe you share a minibus, for example, but then you have to split the cost of that minibus between both properties. So all that kind of functionality is within the base software. That's all in there. There are additional modules which you can add on in there, so things like expense management. So I'm on the road quite a lot. I incur expenses as a lot of hotel managers may do as well. And I need a mechanism for which I can record that, attach my receipts, put them through the formal accounting system to get paid back the money or from my credit card to get paid off. So that's an additional module which we sit on the side.

We've also got purchasing, so purchasing things that would sit on the side as well. Within the sun systems, you can purchase things like consumables would be a good example. Paper cartridges, ink, those kinda bits and pieces and they can all be purchased and requisitioned down from a central control office on the purchasing side. What we don't do, I'm happy to say, we don't do food and beverage purchasing. That's quite a specialist task. When you work within a kitchen environment and you're producing, you know, batches of lasagna or you're mixing cocktails which have multiple ingredients, And you're, you're ordering specific ingredients from specific suppliers. That's very much a specialist activity. And there are some specialist guys out there who do food and beverage procurement very, very well. So we connect that back into Sun Systems so we can have that whole procure to pay all linked up. So I bought something, I need to invoice that, something I've received, and then from Sun Systems, we account for that and then we can pay it back. We can pay for that, at the end of the journey. So there are lots of different modules on the end of Sun systems as.

 

JP: Okay, brilliant. Thank you for that update. I've got a question here. And it's about going back to the infrastructure point that we made, and it might be that you want to take this one offline as well and speak to it, it's a hotelier in London asking the question that they use the system and connect through Citrix. And is that the best way to do it or is there something you would suggest, an upgrade to that or any future amendments to the Citrix option?

 

CM: Citrix is a very viable way to access the system. It's been used for several years, but when you move into the cloud, it's an overhead you don't require anymore. So you don't need to use it. So it's a cost for one and it's also utilising bandwidth for a second. So no, you don't need to use Citrix anymore, but what you do need to do is ensure that the security is correct because it's still a cloud system and you know, we've got to make sure it's secure. So what we do is a couple of different things. We'll either use a VPN or you can VPN. Into the Sun Systems or white list IPs, so we know the specific IP addresses that will come in. If an IP address that tries to come into your Sun Systems tries, we don't let it in. So I hope that answers the question. You don't need Citrix. You can, it's no problem. But what you can do is utilise different methods to make sure your data is secure.

 

JP: Yes. Okay. And, presumably, that might just make it all a bit more efficient and, potentially faster and all of those bits and pieces, if we cut out that step. Absolutely.

 

CM: And cost-effective as well, because you're not buying or paying for software that you don't need to.

 

JP: Okay. He answered and said that made sense. Thank you very much. There you go for that one. That's good. So people are asking about interfaces, which systems are integrated into Sun Systems now? I guess that is probably too long a list to go through. Would I be correct to assume that you've got the main players out there? You integrated into your systems, and I think we should come on onto that and the info sort of other whole solutions that info provides. But if people aren't using other info systems, are you interfaced with the majority of them, with the mainstream one?

 

CM: So you'd have to think of it slightly differently than a PMMS system. So a PMMS system, you say, do you have an integration to this other provider? You've got to write it in this way, and I've got it accepted in this way, and it's quite rigid. And you've got an interface list which says, yes, I interface to all these different providers within your financial system. You don't think of it in the same way. You don't need to have a dedicated interface from a PMMS provider, for example. You've just got to accept data. And then all you do is map the data. So we will take information from any PMMS system as long as they can output it. All we'll do is map it into our Sun systems, so it doesn't have to be, in a rigid format. So yes, we take information from all property management systems, certainly to all the big guys and the smaller ones, as long as they can export it. Point of sale systems. Again, as long as they can export information, we can import the information. We'll take information from a home, and a multitude of systems so there's not a rigid list if you like. As long as the information can be output from them, we can accept it and then we can output from Sun Systems as long as that other system. Say, for example, budgeting and planning. As long as they can accept that information, we can send it out to them. Very open, flexible system.

 

JP: Yes. I guess it's not like a PMMs and that needs to be live. It can be batched at the end of the day, or whenever they used to do their updates. So yes, that's one of the questions. Somebody else is looking at systems at the moment. So tell us about the whole Infor solutions. Because if somebody is looking to completely redo their systems, if they need a complete update some systems would be a very core part, to the finance director. But if we look at the whole operation, I know Infor has a really lovely complete pack for a hospitality business, for a hotel.

 

CM: We do. I'm fortunate and I love working at Infor because we have got a whole suite of solutions available for hospitality. And it's not as if it's one big box here. You've got to take them all. You can chop and change.

 

So, if I start with, oh, Sun Systems, we've talked about besides Sun Systems, we also do budgeting, forecasting, and planning. So that's side by side to provide that forecasting, recasting, look at the business, where we're going in the future, put in what-if scenarios, that also provides fuel management reporting so we have that on the financial side. If we look to move towards the front desk, we've got a property management system called HMS. She's 12 years old, I think she is now. So she's deployed around the world and I think it's about 65 different countries now in various languages.

 

It can be individual property, with 50 bedrooms. It can be a group with 45, 50, 60, or a couple of hundred properties that want to deploy that as well. Again, they're all cloud-based systems, so we do property management built around mobility a lot. So guests can check in on their phones coming in from the airport. He can sit in his room and order his cup of tea and a sandwich and he can check out his phone before leaving the hotel again and again, which connects to all the usual players. So we do that. We do sales and catering systems, so for events, management, exhibitions, weddings, dinners, et cetera, et cetera. So the sales and catering solution, we do that as well. Not just for hotels as well. We do that for restaurants or standalone facilities. We do quite a lot of Stadia, funnily enough with our sales and catering solution because they do a lot of events in Stadia. So we do that. We do point of sale, so for the outlets, we do that as well. Revenue management. Another one we do. So we've had easy RMS for a long time now. So the ability to look at the business and to highlight what revenue opportunities there are moving forward within the calendar year, we have that with Easy RMS. It's quite a good, quite powerful reporting engine in that we take transaction-level detail from the PMMS system into the revenue management system. So a very powerful reporting package. Some people don't want that smaller hotel, do you know what? It's just too big for me. So we've got a baby revenue management product as well. So that sets off the size, so we can now manage a full-blown revenue management system for bigger hotels or a smaller, smaller footprint for say, a 50, 60 bedroom property. We want more like a pricing tool, so we have HPO Hospitality Pricing Optimizer as well at the same time.

 

We also do things like people solutions, so things for the HR department. So we do onboarding, onboarding recruitment, progression management, et cetera, et cetera. That whole HR component and piece, we do quite a lot of workforce management with time and attendance. So contract caterers are very big for them. So the ability. The employee is to find out the shifts on their phone, show up the shift on their phone, to clock in and clock out from their phone. And for the overall business to manage where the employees are and where to deploy them based on the forecasted business coming through. And I'm sure I've forgotten something, but I can't remember.

 

JP: I was going to ask you, you mentioned restaurants there about sales and catering. I mean, obviously, some systems would work in a restaurant environment too. What do you offer for a point-of-sale solution?

 

CM: Sure, yeah, we've got a point-of-sale solution. It's not one of our own, again, it's a product we bought that used to be called Vivo net North American system, but it is available across Europe just now. It's been deployed within our hotel group in France as we speak if I remember rightly. And yeah, it's a point-of-sale solution.

 

It's available for both restaurants, but also food service as well. It's very popular within the school environment or a hospital environment, for example, or contract catering. So within the restaurant, it would be the standard in a setup. Tablets can be handheld units, they can be fixed point-of-sale terminals. For the restaurant solution for more of a hospital or catering solution.

 

It can be a kiosk to self-order or order from your desk, sort of ID and go and pick up. From the kitchen perspective, it's going to be the printouts for the kitchen or kitchen displays for the shelves too, to look at the items as they come through in the kitchen. So yeah, it's a popular point of sale.

 

JP: Brilliant. And I've got a comment here on an easy RMS user. And it takes me back to my dim and distant past. I used to sell Easy RMS. It was at the time one of the very first property management revenue management systems available. And revenue management wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated as it is now. And I just remember being a bit daunted by the thought of selling a system that I hadn't used myself in, in a hotel environment, because it wasn't a thing when I was working in hotels.

 

We had fixed rates and, and discounted rates, and that was pretty much it. The discounted ones were very frowned upon. But, I do remember easy RMS being such a great name for the system because it made it so complete. Easy to understand, and the reporting was just phenomenal. I used to have a great time showing people the reports and the comparisons, and there was almost nothing I couldn't pull up a lovely, beautiful graph to prove the point of, you know, what the necessary thing to do was on rates.

 

So if we take this back to accounting systems. I remember talking to you, During the pandemic actually about a rollout that you had done of a property management system, around a whole group of hotels. And you and I both know changing out a property management system can be quite a lot of hard work when you've got live reservations coming in, and you've got to have that cutoff point. Is the process of putting in an accounting system typically easier, than rolling out a property management system?

 

CM: I would say probably it is a bit easier because, within a PMMs system of property management, you're right, you've got a lot of pressure on there With reservations still coming in with having to manage the live system, you've got a DD of absolute cut over date and there's a lot more happening within a property management system that is quite a complex one, although it's got an awful lot easier these days. People talk about live-loading reservations in the future.

 

Having to sit there for two weeks and tap in all the reservations manually doesn't happen. It's all automatically uploaded, so you don't have that huge workload to do from the property management side, from an accounting system. It's still a big task and part of that goes by how many years of data you want to bring in. Because you will have an old accounting system. Everybody's got an accounting system, just if it depends on how much you want to bring back in again. But it's not too much of an onerous task because again, in accounting systems and accounting systems, all you need to do is look at the data, map it into your new system and bring the data in.

 

Again, if I like it onto a property management system within a PMMs system, a lot of decisions have to be made. What are my rooms like? What are my rates? What's the setup going to be like? What's the structure going to be like if you allow us to drop in our fight-defined database and mark off that? A lot of that's taken away because it's all present. All your codes are preset, all your departments are in there. All you need to do is tweak it around the edges. No, I haven't got a spa, and no, I haven't got golf.

 

Yes, I have got sales and co-conferencing. So you tweak it a little bit to make it just how your hotel wants to operate, and then you can, you know, bring the system live. So it's an easier task. It's not a simple task, you know, you've got to do it properly, but it's certainly easier than it was before. Easier intellectual property management.

 

JP: Yes, and what you mentioned earlier about accounts being pretty straightforward. It doesn't change a lot, from property to property or even over the years. Whereas with property management systems, a lot can change on how you want to put your right rates and packages and solutions and bits and pieces out there, and your market codes and all those things. Sometimes I just need that opportunity for a new system to get totally refreshed. So, oh, I've just lost the question I was going to ask.

 

I haven't got any more questions coming in. So I don’t know if there's anything else that you want to share with our delegates in the few minutes that we've got left. Anything that I've forgotten to ask you?

 

CM: It's all been covered. Thank you for the questions. Thank you to the audience for their questions as well. There's lots of information on Sun Systems and Infor if you just go to infor.com/hospitality. There's a whole raft of information there. There are white papers, there are customer stories and lots of information. But if you want any more information, please contact me. Reach out. You'll find me on places like LinkedIn and also Calum.McIdoe@infor.com. Just drop me an email and we can have a check.

 

JP: That's fantastic. So thank you. Thank you everyone for listening. If you do have any questions as Callum says that you haven't already asked, then just come back to Calum or me, and I'll put you in touch with Calum. Thank you. And the support from your team within Infor, to help us put this masterclass together today. And as I always say to everyone, please remember that the opinions expressed are exactly that, and should be treated as such.

 

If you need any formal advice, then please do approach your professional. Or come to me at HOSPA for a referral. And if you didn't catch Calum's details, then again, get in touch with me. We have a very simple email address, hospa@hospa.org. Should you want to get in touch with Calum or ask me any questions? We'll be delighted to make any relevant connections.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning, there will be a recording of this on our website, on our website hopefully before the end of the week, along with all our other webinars and masterclass. And we always try to put a summary of the key points. So that will be on hospa.org. And that's it. Thank you very much for listening and we look forward to seeing you all again very soon. Thank you, Calum.

 

CM: Thanks, Jane. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day, bye.