Basic accounting capability
The existing setup was simple and no longer covered everything the finance team needed.
Customer story
From handwritten requisitions to modern accounting.
St Clements has relied on DataFlow for its finance operations since 1995. What began as a move away from manual purchasing processes has developed into a long-term accounting partnership, now running on Clarity with broader reporting, remote access and automatic updates.
“DataFlow is fantastically fit for purpose for us. It’s pretty much glitch-free and flexible, and the support is second to none.”
Industry
Power & gas software
With DataFlow since
1995
Primary use
Accounting & purchase orders
Current platform
Clarity
About St Clements
Specialist software for Britain’s energy market.
St Clements is a software company serving the UK energy sector. For more than 35 years, it has developed specialist software for Great Britain’s electricity and gas markets, supporting utility companies with areas such as billing, metering, settlements and industry data exchange.
Alongside its technical expertise, St Clements has built deep knowledge of industry processes, regulation and data exchange, enabling it to develop software around the needs of a highly specialised and constantly evolving market.
The pain
Manual finance processes created extra work.
In the mid-1990s, St Clements’ finance processes relied heavily on manual administration. Purchase requisitions were handwritten by budget holders, and the accounting setup offered only limited cost-centre analysis.
The finance team needed a more capable way to manage purchasing information, reduce paper-based handling and analyse costs in greater detail.
Limited cost-centre analysis
The team needed more depth when analysing costs across the business.
Handwritten requisitions
Budget holders wrote purchase requisitions by hand before they reached finance.
Paper-based administration
Important purchasing documentation still depended on manual, paper-based processes.
“Digitalising documentation was a big thing. Having the purchase orders on the system was a massive time saving for us.”
Why DataFlow remains the right fit
Fit, flexibility and support over three decades.
Across three decades, DataFlow has remained a strong fit for St Clements because it combines practical accounting functionality with flexibility and responsive support from people who know the product in depth.
01
Fit for finance
The system continues to match the way St Clements needs to run its finance work.
02
Responsive support
Queries are answered quickly by people who understand the product in depth.
03
Customer-led improvement
Suggestions are discussed openly and can feed directly into product enhancements.
04
Flexibility with control
The system allows genuine errors to be corrected without weakening accounting discipline.
“They know the product inside out and they can answer my query straight away. I cannot emphasise enough how impressed I am with the support.”
The move to Clarity
A careful move to Clarity.
St Clements approached the move to Clarity carefully, running DataFlow and Clarity side by side for two to three months, with both platforms connected to the same underlying database. This allowed the finance team to use and evaluate Clarity against its live day-to-day work without having to duplicate data entry.
Once the team was fully comfortable working in Clarity, access to the previous DataFlow platform was removed. The DataFlow team supported the process throughout, working closely with St Clements’ IT team on the practical setup.
01
Keep the existing system live
DataFlow remained live while Clarity was tested, avoiding an abrupt cutover.
02
Validate Clarity on live work
The parallel period let the finance team test Clarity against real day-to-day activity.
03
Switch with confidence
Once the live checks were complete, the team could move to Clarity with confidence.
“I was a little hesitant about the move, but the DataFlow team made the transition very reassuring. We ran both systems side by side for a few months to check everything thoroughly, and it worked out very well.”
Life on Clarity
A simpler finance workflow.
Clarity has modernised the finance team’s day-to-day experience in practical ways, particularly through richer reporting, easier remote access and automatic software updates.
More reporting options
More reporting options give the finance team greater flexibility in how it analyses and presents information.
Remote access
Since St Clements chose to host Clarity in the cloud using its own infrastructure, its finance team gains the flexibility to access the system remotely without connecting back to the office environment.
Automatic updates
Updates are pushed automatically, removing the old download-and-install routine.
Purchase order processing also keeps more of the workflow in one place. Once a purchase order is in the system, much of the information needed when the invoice arrives is already captured, leaving the finance team to complete the final date and values rather than re-enter the transaction.
For St Clements, the result is a finance workflow with less manual handling, broader reporting and more of the day-to-day process managed digitally.
“It’s more the flow of the processing of documents, and the better variety of reporting… the fact that we’ve moved more of the work into the digital format.”
The verdict
A relationship built on trust.
More than three decades into the relationship, St Clements sums up its experience with DataFlow in two words: “extended family”. The relationship has been built on trust, responsive support and a team that understands both the software and how customers use it.
10/10 recommendation
“Secure software, a trustworthy company, and support that is second to none. What stands out most is that the team listens to what customers need and understands those requirements.”
Trusted by UK trading and accounting businesses
Bannerman Company Ltd
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