COA Solutions has picked up the top accounting software award, after several attempts to pick up the first prize ­ knocking CODA off its perch.

Judges agreed with COA’s opening gambit in their awards entry that the product “offers a breadth and depth of functionality that meets the needs of today’s larger sized organisations”.

The well-regarded software product, now on version six, scooped the prize ahead of some serious competition.

Key to the decision was a strong set of testimonials, which provided colour and background to the company’s strong entry.

“Without exception, people have responded very positively to the COA Solutions system,” said Action for Children programme manager Paul Addington.

Graeme Johns, financial controller at the Lloyd Fraser Group, extolled the virtues of the latest version of the software.

“Since implementing COA Solutions’ OpenAccounts finance system, we have seen dramatic improvements in decision making and financial control and have also enjoyed further productivity and advanced reporting capabilities since upgrading to OpenAccounts v6,” he said.

And it wasn’t just the customers singing its praises ­ the judges gave it top spot in the face of intense competition.

“It has good growth and a good UK user base. They talk about key issues such as green/CSR policies, and Prince2 for project management. It ticks a lot of the boxes,” said one judge.

“Their references were great, and really gave reasons why we should pick them as this year’s winner,” said another judge for the category.

Let’s leave the last word to another user of the software. “One of the key criteria when choosing OpenAccounts was its ease-of-use, and this has proved to be a major selling point internally. People can see how it helps them do things more effectively,” said Addington.

INVESTING FOR INNOVATION

COA Solutions invested significantly into OpenAccounts v6 and the OpenAccounts Smart Business Suite to ensure advanced functionality and continued technical innovation, with:

● Collaborative Planning – an advanced budgeting and planning solution to help organisations to budget and forecast in real-time and collaboratively.

● eProcurement – functionality has been added to the Procure-to-Pay business process to facilitate the roll out of procurement to devolved business users.

● Corporate Analytics – this business intelligence solution enables finance professionals to monitor, analyse and report on the real drivers behind their corporate performance. The software comes with hundreds of pre-defined best practice key performance indicators (KPIs).