IRIS Practice Management
has been honoured at the 2007 Accountancy Age Awards winning the
coveted title of ‘Practice Management Software Package of the
Year.’ This is a brand new category making it even more valuable a
win for IRIS (www.iris.co.uk).
The judges praised IRIS for ‘its excellent
functionality and wide range of applications.’ They also commented
on ‘high customer retention (97%) and growth in its user base’
which it attributed to the operation of a direct sales team in the
interests of building strong customer relationships.
Robert Salvoni, Managing Director of IRIS
Practice Software and Ros Bedford-Smith, Practice Management
Product Manager, were on hand at the Battersea Park Arena to
collect the Award. Robert said: “This is fantastic recognition for
Ros and her team who demonstrate a real passion for their product
and who constantly set the bar ‘higher and higher’ in terms of the
product quality and the customer care they deliver.”
The IRIS program beat off strong competition
from Practice Engine Group and APS to win the Award with the judges
describing the IRIS Practice Management as the ‘clear market
leader’. In this sector of the accountancy practice market, IRIS
Practice Management is recognised as having a 39% market share; way
ahead of its competitors, the closest of which holds only 15% of
the market.
IRIS is the only significant vendor in the
Accountancy Practice Software market to adopt the integrated
approach, a factor commented on by Accountancy Age: ‘The IRIS
package offers seamless integration between tax, accounts
production, auditing, secretarial and fee-logging applications.’
This yields a number of significant user benefits including cost
and time efficiency from ease of use. Its central client dashboard
provides instant ‘visibility’ with a complete overview of all
activities on a client by client basis. This enables practice staff
to respond immediately to client queries.
Since its launch in 2001, ‘IRIS Practice
Management’ has become one of the company’s fastest selling
products with the number of new users in the 2006/7 financial year
climbing 15% on the previous year to over 13,000. One of the key
reasons for the system’s popularity is that for minimal time
investment a practice can achieve an unprecedented level of control
over its day to day business. Accountants appreciate the breadth of
the product which incorporates a document management and
communication tracking facility, an intelligent workflow system
which tracks each stage of job and a data mining system that allows
practices to market their services more effectively. Crucially, all
these features are included as standard.
Barry Soraff of Raffingers Stuart
commented: “I am happy to say that the
annual licence fee for IRIS Practice Management pays for itself
many times over. If we didn’t have it, simply we would be less
profitable, more stressed and have less time to spend with our
clients. Renewing is not really a big decision that we spend any
time thinking over”
