Lifestyle Fitness
Lifestyle Fitness Digitalises for Future Growth
Leisure leader puts Sage Intacct and Percipient at the heart of cloud-led modernisation.
Lifestyle Fitness is a family-owned fitness operator with 24 health clubs across the UK, offering premium gym, health and wellbeing facilities. As the business prepared for future growth, it needed a modern financial management platform to improve reporting, eliminate manual processes and provide greater visibility across every club.
Percipient implemented Sage Intacct, delivering automated reporting, live dashboards, and multi-entity financial insights that halved reporting time, empowered managers with real-time performance data, and created a strong foundation for continued expansion.
About Lifestyle Fitness
Founded in 1982, Lifestyle Fitness is a family-run business that offers the highest quality experience at an affordable price point. From changing rooms, design and lighting, to equipment supplied by market leaders Technogym, Gym80, and Escape Fitness, the clubs offer the broadest range of kit, free weights and training in any UK fitness setting.
The company’s strategy is based on the belief that people should be able to enjoy an optimum gym experience at a competitive price. The company delivers this ethos across its 24 clubs in the UK.
Modernising for a New Era
Facing the need to modernise and streamline operations while improving visibility and scale for future growth, Lifestyle Fitness selected Sage Intacct to support its financial management in January 2022.
To replace a legacy system that relied on significant manual processes and spreadsheets, which led to reporting lags and reduced agility, Lifestyle Fitness selected Sage Intacct based on several factors. The platform’s ability to deliver real-time insights through a fully integrated platform accessible by anyone across the business was key, as was its ability to streamline reporting. Percipient’s credentials and hospitality experience in leading the deployment also instilled confidence and complemented the selection of Sage Intacct.
“The decision to move to a new, cloud-based system for our financial management was unanimous, and having seen Sage Intacct in practice, we had absolute confidence it was the right solution for us going forward,” comments David Wilson, Senior Accountant, Lifestyle Fitness. “We were already using Sage Payroll and, having seen several demos of Sage Intacct, we were impressed with how comprehensive the system was, its ease of use, and the speed at which reports could be generated.”
Sage Intacct has more than lived up to our expectations. With a click, we can see information on any aspect of the business and drill down to as much detail as needed. The insights are incredibly high quality, and in addition to cutting reporting time in half, the system has sped up our decision-making and planning.
Having gone live in October 2022, Lifestyle Fitness is already starting to see huge benefits, as David explains:
“Sage Intacct has more than lived up to our expectations. With a click, we can see information on any aspect of the business and drill down to as much detail as needed. The insights are incredibly high quality, and in addition to cutting reporting time in half, the system has sped up our decision-making and planning.
“The dashboards are designed impeccably and really are so easy to use. When looking for something, you can search a keyword and find the entry you need, along with any linked data or documents. Profit and loss accounts for each club are available to tab across, view, and compare as needed. This granular detail is particularly important, as our clubs operate on different business models. Some are fully managed, others operate on an income-share basis, and several entities hire out facilities such as pools or football pitches.
“Whereas previously, it took a great deal of time to create our management accounts before e-mailing them to the executive team, we now simply create them in minimal time, flag that they are ready, and the board can access and drill down into those elements they need at that time.”
Cross-Departmental Benefits
Crucially, Sage Intacct empowers teams across the Lifestyle Fitness business, from marketing, maintenance and IT to operations and regional managers, to view performance in real time.
This capability is particularly powerful for regional managers, who review profit and loss accounts on a regular Teams call; because everything is easily accessible, they can have meaningful conversations to keep spending in line with budgets.
This approach means any overspending can be flagged and addressed before it escalates, and by tracking, say, marketing investment in a particular club against profitability, trends can be analysed and incorporated into the strategy. Teams can explore red flags, challenges, and opportunities further, expanding the scope of these calls and improving performance.
Sage Intacct is designed for modern businesses looking for simple-to-use systems. It makes complex data understandable, delivering intelligent, in-depth insights, and has facilitated seamless operations for our finance team and beyond. We have immense confidence in our ability to understand, develop, and expand our business, and we now have the scale to grow as our plans dictate.
Maintaining a Leading Position
Given the volume of expensive equipment operated by the fitness leader, whether through an owned-site or leasing model, maintenance is a significant area.
“Sage Intacct allows maintenance teams to ensure an accurate, up-to-date asset register as any piece of equipment is coded and named appropriately to facilitate a picture of live assets at any given point,” David points out. “While this might not seem like a big issue, something as small as a miscoded item can have a significant impact on our bottom line, as the associated investment levels are substantial.
“Over and above the capabilities of the system itself, the Sage community is a great value-add as we can flag gaps or suggestions, and these are escalated to the Sage development team for consideration for future updates.”
A First-Rate Future
The ability to view the entire business and drill down as needed has been a game-changer for Lifestyle Fitness, as David concludes.
“Sage Intacct is designed for modern businesses looking for simple-to-use systems. It makes complex data understandable, delivering intelligent, in-depth insights, and has facilitated seamless operations for our finance team and beyond. We have immense confidence in our ability to understand, develop, and expand our business, and we now have the scale to grow as our plans dictate.
“From day one, Percipient has been nothing short of first-rate, providing a highly professional and diligent level of support and service. From weekly meetings to progress check-ins to keep everything on track, to following up on specific points and offering reassurance, they are a partner in every sense of the word. They have provided a consistent and straightforward, seamless path to go live, which was on time and to budget, and we really can’t praise them enough.”
Sage Intacct Partner for Leisure
If you’d like to learn more about Sage Intacct, our work with Lifestyle Fitness, or how we can help your leisure business, please get in touch or call us on 01606 871332.