CATS: A refit for shop fitters, Tienda Ltd of Grantham

From design concept to fitted solution, Tienda are a leading shop fitter that creates the desired image for high street retail outlets throughout the country.

Numerous projects have been undertaken by Tienda that are well known to the general public, for example:

• Full design and construction of the Pret A Manger image
• The new café project 'Revive' for M&S
• The first European store for American designer 'Liz Claibourne'
• The new FISH! retail image
• Carphone Warehouse

...the list goes on...

Going forward for the business has meant that they also required a refit of their own. Tienda has appointed CATS (Computerised Accounting-The Solution) to implement the full business management solution.

The company was looking for a solution where financials fit the construction industry perfectly, a job costing system that managed and reported against tight budgets and a management reporting system that provided key financial information in electronic format (i.e. PDF format) for easy distribution, on screen for drillable access, as well as on paper!

The company also has a requirement for management of large numbers of subcontractors and all the related CIS accounting requirements - to compound this the company operates in both the UK and Ireland.

Tienda now utilise the system to access each project folder, review the charges for each cost category, breakdown the labour content, materials used and unrecoverable expenses. Revenue is applied for and attached to the related job costs allowing the running profitability to be continually updated.

As Tienda operate live work in progress (WIP) the system posts all transactions in both the job costing module and the core financials (to the nominal ledger) simultaneously, meaning they always have an up to date value for WIP in the balance sheet, with costs being attributed to the profit and loss account on an application basis,

The staff of Tienda, have noticed the amount of paperwork generated for each project being cut back as they utilise extensive drill down features and paperless reporting. This facility allows the user to drill through the Job code back to invoices and the original source orders, plus it allows the finance department to interrogate any unexpected charges in the management accounts.