How City Plumbing turned lease accounting complexity to simplicity with IRIS Innervision

Managing plumbing, heating, and renewable energy solutions across hundreds of locations is no small feat, but City Plumbing makes it look easy! As part of the Highbourne Group, one of the UK’s leading merchant groups, they operate a lease portfolio of around 400 properties. Behind the scenes, though, compliance with complex standards like IFRS 16 and FRS 102 can be a real challenge. That’s why City Plumbing turned to IRIS Innervision.

We caught up with Simon Perry, Group Financial Accountant, to find out how Innervision helped them save hours of time, simplify everyday tasks and keep their data accurate, every single time.

Unclogged processes, backed by a strong seal

Having joined the group in 2021, Simon tells us the company were already reporting IFRS 16. He says, “in terms of the reporting for IFRS 16, we fully understand that now. The information that comes out of IRIS makes it easy to stick the numbers straight into the accounts, which is really helpful and makes the end of the year work less difficult.”

Although Simon hadn’t used Innervision prior to this role, he quickly found the core functions intuitive and manageable. He adds, “once I started using Innervision a bit more and needed to get into the technical side, the help online is really useful. When you’re having unusual issues and need to talk to IRIS directly, they have been really quick at supporting us.” Over his four years at City Plumbing, Simon recalls only two or three issues, all of which IRIS resolved within 48 hours. This responsiveness has given Simon and his team the confidence and time they need to work efficiently.

Automation that keeps things flowing

Automating IFRS 16 compliance with Innervision reduced manual workload dramatically for City Plumbing. Simon says that before using Innervision, “if we were doing something much more manual, then it would take hours to prepare the journals for the number of leases we’ve got. Whereas Innervision spits out exactly what you need each month with about three clicks and takes ten minutes. It saves hours per month compared to doing it manually.”

Through centralised tools, Innervision is designed to enhance accuracy, audit readiness and improve operational efficiency. For City Plumbing, the software ticks all these boxes. Simon tells us, “Innervision has improved our accuracy and audit readiness because it comes out with a number. We can then give our reports to auditors, and they can choose what they want to test, and it lines up with the output reporting. It’s just one less thing to have to fight through.”

With a mission to make IFRS 16 compliance as straightforward as possible, Innervision offers essential features and a comprehensive reporting suite to handle complex scenarios. These capabilities have delivered clear financial benefits for City Plumbing. Simon says, “Innervision saves us having to employ another person. It’s easy to use and can fit into the relevant roles that we currently have. It fits with our preference for modern systems, making it accessible for anyone who needs it.”

Scaling up without burst pipes

With a lease portfolio of this scale, City Plumbing needed a solution that could handle complexity without adding administrative burden. Simon says, “With Innervision, we have better visibility of the extent, cost and value of our leases. It’s interesting to know what we’ve got and how much we’re likely to pay each month, which is included in all the reporting from the software.”

When asked for advice to other businesses approaching IFRS 16 or FRS 102 lease accounting compliance, Simon advises: “If you can get a good list of all your leases before you set it up, all of their key terms, etcetera, then putting them into Innervision and getting them going is actually really easy. After that, it just requires minimal maintenance.”

“Innervision mostly makes day-to-day life pretty easy, and that’s the key thing for us.”