Sarah Deere

Coastline Graphics are a design and graphics business based in Bury St Edmunds, they have been creating high quality products since 1989, specialising in vehicle graphics, printing and signs.

Coastline first signed with Knights Lowe in 2011, and have since trusted us with their year-end accounts, payroll and most recently their transition over to cloud accounting software Xero.

Cloud accounting software

Accounts Administrator Sarah Deere first heard about our cloud accounting services at a trade show we held for our clients to highlight the way cloud accounting software can help local businesses. Sarah was hesitant at first to transition away from the technology she knew and knew she had to be comfortable with the offering before moving forward. When speaking with Sarah she told us how she had gone through so much training to get to where she was with the existing technology that she worried that moving over to new software would take away from all the knowledge she had gained.

Xero was on Sarah’s radar as a possible solution for Coastline but it wasn’t the right time for the change. Sarah then welcomed her first child and when she returned from maternity leave she learned how Xero had become our preferred accounting platform and with an extra push for cost saving internally decided to look further into the possibility of implementing the technology.

Our Accountant and cloud accounting expert went to see Sarah to deliver a series of training sessions and left Sarah with a demo environment so she could play around with the system and get a true feel for how it worked. The decision was made, and we moved forward with implementation in October 2022. Knights Lowe handled the whole data transfer and the only impact on Coastline was one day where they were unable to use the system and then Xero was put in ready to use.

Straight away Sarah was able to see positive change from switching over to Xero, the change gave Sarah the opportunity to reduce her working days from 5 to 3 days, giving her more time with her family. Sarah said, ‘if we hadn’t made the change I wouldn’t have been able to go part time, it has sped up my whole job’.

Sarah’s favourite thing about Xero is that it is a true cloud-based software, meaning you can access it from anywhere, at any time. She also told us about how using Xero made her realise how outdated the previous software was, that she had been working harder for software that should have been working for her. Xero provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it accessible to users with varying levels of accounting knowledge.

Payroll

Knights Lowe have been processing Coastline’s payroll since 2014, we also provide pension services.

‘The payroll service from Knights Lowe is really good, I really appreciate all the support the team give me, especially Julie. No question is ever too much, and the team always help me to understand the areas I’m unsure on. Knights Lowe give me an open environment to ask questions and learn’.