Jon Peilow has been working with The Castle Hotel since 2006, initially as their Financial Controller and then in 2009 becoming their Finance Director.

The Castle Accounts were managed on a desktop accounting and payroll software but in 2017 the JRP team implemented cloud and paperless accounting solutions.

The JRP team managed the migration of data to Xero and implemented Receipt Bank. The Castle then encouraged all suppliers to send invoices electronically, saving both parties time and expense.

The Castle is a large business and were processing in excess of 500 supplier invoices a month. Each one of these invoices had to go one of 8 Heads of Department before being sent to a Director to approve payment. It was at this point JRP started working with Approval Max. This is a really smart and flexible piece of software in which we can program a data flow for invoice approval based on variables such as Supplier, Nominal Code or Amount. Linking Approval Max to Xero means that it is impossible for a supplier to be paid until the invoice has been authorised in line with policy.

Overnight the Castle accounts office had gone from having a filing cabinet full of supplier invoices to a paperless environment.

JRP had been looking at different time and attendance options almost a year but most were cost prohibitive. Then we were introduced to Deputy, a web and app based solution which handled all rotas, clocking and hours approval. The reports which came from Deputy were real time, so as soon as a draft rota was produced, the Head of Department and General Manager would know the predicted labour cost. This could then be compared to actual cost on a daily basis meaning no shocks in the monthly management accounts

Next, we implemented Brightpay and Brightpay Connect. This is a hybrid system, with the main part of the payroll process still being desktop based, but giving the employee and employer an online portal. The Employee gets to view their payslips and any important HR documents online, and the employer gets to see payroll reports and approve the pay run before it’s finalised.

The final piece of the Jigsaw came in 2020 when a new PMS was implemented with a direct feed into Xero was implemented giving daily sales figures posted directly to the accounts software.

With the processes and systems we have implemented we have delivered:

“One crucial aspect in overseeing the accounts in a hotel is the management of the business’s cash flow. In this respect, as in all others, Jon is peerless – a class act!”

Kit Chapman MBE. Proprietor, The Castle at Taunton