CUSTOMERS

AIR PARTNER
Air Partner flies ahead with Navision

Air Partner is using Navision Financials for financial management and reporting throughout its operations in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA.  Navision’s flexibility means that it can meet the increasing demands of dynamic and fast expanding companies such as Air Partner. 

Established nearly 40 years ago, Air Partner plc is the world’s largest aircraft charter broker with a turnover of £75 million last year and employing 109 staff worldwide.  In addition to its UK operation based in Crawley, near Gatwick Airport, where around 50 staff are employed, the company has subsidiaries in France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA, plus sales offices in France and Austria.  Customers range from aircraft operators and high net worth individuals to multinational companies and the MOD.  If you need a plane within two hours, whether it is a helicopter or a Boeing 747, Air Partner will arrange it.  Here is an example of Air Partner’s capabilities. A businessman, who was booked on Concorde from Heathrow, was stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 and was destined to miss his flight to New York.  Air Partner was contacted and they arranged for a helicopter to pick him up and transport him to Heathrow - he caught his flight with moments to spare.   

The Problem

When Amanda Mohr joined Air Partner as Treasury Manager two and a half years ago, the company was using an inflexible DOS-based accounting package that was incompatible with the systems used by its French and German subsidiaries.  “We decided to look for a new system that was more progressive and flexible and could be rolled out to our subsidiaries,“ she explained.   “We trawled the accounting and computer press for a suitable solution that could be tailored to our specific needs and came up with three -  Exchequer, Great Plains Dynamics and Navision Financials.” 

 After the various presentations and detailed evaluations, Air Partner selected Navision Financials from the Midlands based Navision Solution Centre, Metaphorix.   In addition, to being the most flexible solution, Navision is an international system that is EMU compliant, which is necessary for Air Partner’s many multi-currency transactions.  “We also felt that, as it is a mid-range solution, it would cope with our future expansion plans,” says Amanda Mohr.  And finally, our auditors, KPMG, had Navision on their list of recommended systems.”  

The Navision Solution

Air Partner signed the contract with Metaphorix early in 1999 to provide Navision Financials integrated applications, including General Ledger, Sales & Receivables, Purchases & Payables for installation in the UK, plus subsidiaries in Germany, France and the USA.  Metaphorix was also contracted to develop an integrated Flight Input Screen to allow input of flight operator, route, flight date, broker and aircraft/flight type.  This involved carrying out a scoping exercise to look at how Air Partner’s invoices were currently produced.  As each of the flights is based on a job, Air Partner wanted to replicate a particular job in the accounting system, so that a gross profit per job, department and type of aircraft could be determined.  Additional reports were also produced such as an enhanced Age Debtors report and Job Ledger reports to help improve their management reporting.  They have also adapted the invoices to reflect the different operating companies.

It was decided that the pilot site for Navision would be the German subsidiary in Cologne and this was successfully implemented by Metaphorix, and was up and running in July 1999.  A US version of Navision, together with the Metaphorix developed Flight Input Screen, was then rolled out to the US company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida during September/October.  In this case a local US Navision Solution Centre carried out the implementation.  The UK company went live in November, after a month of parallel running with the old system.  Navision is installed on an NT server and there are 12 users in the UK.  Since then, the system has been installed in Air Partner’s small Swiss subsidiary, which was a brand new start-up company, and in the Paris-based French subsidiary.  

In Use and Business Benefits

According to Amanda Mohr, the accounts staff have found it far more flexible than the previous system. “Everyone is using it on a daily basis and we have people also using the system for financial reporting. We’ve completely transformed our accounting processes.  We used to do quarterly reporting but with no deadlines in place, reports were always late.  With Navision, we’ve introduced deadlines and monthly reporting and the flexibility of the system allows us to produce more relevant and up-to-date reports.  We use Navision’s drill-down and filtering features all the time and cut and paste information into Excel spreadsheets.           

The Future

Air Partner has a bespoke DOS-based package that handles flights and encompasses every aircraft and airport in the world. The company plans to have an interface written between this and Navision Financials.

Conclusion

 “We have an excellent relationship with Metaphorix who are very attuned to our needs both in the UK and in our subsidiaries,” enthuses Amanda Mohr.  “They react swiftly to our requests for training and answer our queries promptly. Navision Financials was the right choice.  It is reliable and I would recommend it to any one.”

Mark Thompson, Commercial Director at Metaphorix commented, “Air Partner have looked at the whole of their business and exploited the functionality within Navision to provide them with true business benefit.  They are a great organisation to work with, as they are constantly looking at the best ways to improve the system and maximise their investment.”