Lifestyle Fitness Digitalises for Future Growth
Leisure leader puts Sage Intacct and Percipient at the heart of cloud-led modernisation.
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 widest 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. This ethos is delivered across the company’s 24 clubs across the UK.
Modernising for a New Era
Faced with a need to modernise and streamline its operations, while instilling greater visibility and scale for future growth, Lifestyle Fitness selected Sage Intacct to support its financial management in January 2022.
Replacing a legacy system which relied upon significant manual processes and spreadsheets, and as a result, led to lags in reporting which impeded agility, Sage Intacct was selected based on a number of factors. The platform’s ability to deliver real-time insights through a fully integrated platform, which anyone across the business could access, was key, as was its ability to streamline reporting. Percipient’s credentials and hospitality experience in leading the deployment also instilled confidence and was complementary to 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. At the click of a button, we can see information on any aspect of the business, and drill down to as much detail as is necessary. The quality of the insights is incredibly high, and as well as slashing reporting time by half, the system has expedited 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. At the click of a button, we can see information on any aspect of the business, and drill down to as much detail as is necessary. The quality of the insights is incredibly high, and as well as slashing reporting time by half, the system has expedited our decision-making and planning.
“The dashboards are designed impeccably and really are so easy to use. When looking for something, you can simply search for a keyword and find the entry you need, as well as any linked data or documents. Profit and loss accounts on each club are available to tab across and view and compare, where needed. This granular detail on each site is particularly important, as our clubs operate on different business models. While some are fully managed, others operate on an income share basis, and we have several entities which 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 run through the profit and loss accounts on a regular Teams call, and because everything is easily accessible, meaningful conversations can take place to ensure spending is in line with budgets.
This approach means that any overspending can be flagged and addressed before it escalates, and through tracking, say marketing investment in a particular club versus profitability, trends can be analysed and incorporated into the strategy. And any red flags, challenges or opportunities can be explored further amplifying the scope of these calls and honing performance.
Sage Intacct is designed for modern businesses looking for simple-to-use systems. It makes sense of complexities to deliver intelligent, in-depth insights, and has facilitated seamless operations for our finance team and beyond. We have an immense amount of confidence when it comes to understanding, developing and expanding our business, and we now have the scale to expand as our plans dictate.
Maintaining a Leading Position
Given the volume of expensive equipment operated by the fitness leader, whether as part of an owned site or leasing model, maintenance is a huge 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 big 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
Having the capability to view the entire business and drill down as needed really 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 sense of complexities to deliver intelligent, in-depth insights, and has facilitated seamless operations for our finance team and beyond. We have an immense amount of confidence when it comes to understanding, developing and expanding our business, and we now have the scale to expand 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 check-ins on progress in order 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.