Holkham Estate
Holkham Estate Coasts into Digital Transformation with Percipient and Sage Intacct
Modern cloud platform drives intelligence and instils scale at historic Norfolk estate.
Holkham Estate is a diverse rural business encompassing agriculture, property, tourism, hospitality and conservation activities across a significant area of the Norfolk coast. Managing complex finances across multiple business units required a more flexible and scalable approach to financial management.
Percipient implemented Sage Intacct to provide a single source of financial truth, automate reporting and deliver greater visibility across the estate’s operations, enabling more informed decision-making and improved efficiency across the organisation.
About Holkham Estate
The Holkham Estate spans 25,000 acres and comprises 300 properties. Land and property-based activities include residential, commercial, and holiday lettings; property development; arable and vegetable farming; forestry; country sports; a hotel and restaurant; a holiday park; beaches; car parks; admissions; cafes; shops; and concerts and events.
Holkham’s vision is to be the UK’s most pioneering and sustainable rural estate. A testament to this is its sustainability team, which assesses the estate’s carbon footprint based on energy consumption, waste, and other factors, and develops an accurate roadmap to Net Zero.
Percipient came highly recommended by Sage. From day one, the team were exceptional. Our business is incredibly unique and diverse, and the team spent substantial amounts of time, including an extensive week-long site visit by one of their consultants, learning about the dynamics and nuances of our operations to scope the project out and ensure we deployed the platform in the best way.
A Modern Approach
As part of a continuous improvement strategy, Holkham’s operations shifted in 2021 to empower owners of its diverse business areas with greater intelligence.
This new strategic emphasis required standardisation and access to insights to steer the estate forward, and following a market review, Holkham invested in Sage Intacct, Sage’s best-in-class cloud financial management platform.
Replacing a myriad of best-of-breed legacy systems, Holkham selected Sage Intacct for its ability to scale and support growth, deliver reliable insights and intelligence, and integrate easily with other third-party systems, such as farming and property management.
“Until recently, each part of the business was using a different system, which impeded consistency and left our reporting open to delays and inaccuracies,” comments Luke Tyce, Finance Director, Holkham Estate. “We needed one central system which would allow the estate to deliver contextualised data and autonomy to business unit owners, and ensure accuracy and consistency in the way in which the estate reports.”
Holkham evaluated each existing system as part of a review, but none had the breadth, depth, or scalability the organisation needed going forward. On recommendation, the organisation selected Percipient to manage the Sage Intacct deployment.
“Percipient came highly recommended by Sage,” Luke adds. “From day one, the team were exceptional. Our business is incredibly unique and diverse, and the team spent substantial amounts of time, including an extensive week-long site visit by one of their consultants, learning about the dynamics and nuances of our operations to scope the project out and ensure we deployed the platform in the best way.”
Future-Proofing History
“Having gone live with phase one of the project in just three months, Sage Intacct represents a robust digital foundation from which we can continue to build upon. It’s created an opportunity for us to standardise processes, making everything easier and reducing our risk of inaccuracies. Because everyone across the estate uses the same system, we can redeploy people wherever they are needed, based on demand or to bridge skills gaps.
“Sage Intacct is so easy to integrate, which means that we can maximise visibility across the entire estate, capturing insights from all areas, whether it’s build status or ice cream sales, to create a meaningful and comprehensive view of operations.
“Its flexibility not only helps resourcing and reporting but gives us much more confidence as the estate’s business activities evolve, and we are confident that we’ll save time and drive greater productivity as a result. We’re already seeing huge time savings following phase one, with 65% of our invoice processing being automated,” he explains.
Reporting Benefits
Holkham is seeing real value in reporting. Not only is it slick and seamless to create a report on a given area, but with Sage Intacct, Holkham can also slice and dice aspects of an area, such as café demand against weather patterns and conditions, to deliver robust, reliable insights and intelligence.
“When looking retrospectively at data and identifying patterns, it’s important to understand the why behind the what. Sage Intacct gives us the means to investigate that, so if, say, visitor numbers are down, we can easily access the data to understand the circumstances. For example, we monitor rainfall for our farming activities. But this is also a useful indicator of profit levels, as takings in our café on a sunny day can be around £5,000 more than on a rainy day.”
Building a Sustainable Future
“Central to our ethos is a commitment to sustainability, and it’s paramount that we have the intelligence to support our analysts in understanding consumption, usage and waste. UK organisations will inevitably face financial penalties if they fail to meet environmental targets, and with Sage Intacct, we’re confident we’re one step ahead. Because we can distil much of the sustainability information from invoices, Sage Intacct is highly valuable for reporting on our progress.”
Paving the Way for Future Generations
“I have a lot of experience in managing comparable deployments, and in my previous role, I managed a large finance team of 70+ people. I honestly feel that the relatively short deployment timeframe was a testament to Percipient’s extensive up-front learning and understanding of our diverse business. They were brilliant.
“If further evidence was needed, one of our non-executive directors was genuinely taken aback when we reported a three-month deployment, and I believe that this timeframe was because the team put in so much time and commitment at the outset.”
As part of a phased deployment, the second part of the estate will go live with Sage Intacct in 2025. “We’re confident that with Sage Intacct as part of the foundations of our operations, we can ensure that the estate continues to thrive, in a sustainable and community-centric manner, for generations ahead,” Luke concludes.
Sage Intacct for Hospitality
To learn more about Sage Intacct, our work with Holkham Estate, or how we can help your hospitality business, get in touch today or call us on 01606 871332.