Technology
We choose technology your team can still run in five years.
That is a design rule, not a slogan. It means well-established tools, written documentation, and no part of the system that only Panfidea understands. If you ever decide to work with someone else, you should be able to.
Connecting systems together
Most of the value in finance software comes from systems talking to each other correctly. An ERP system and a bank. A bank and a reporting system. A new application and one that has been running for fifteen years.
We build these connections using whatever both sides can actually support:
- Web interfaces, when the systems are modern enough to offer them.
- File transfers on a schedule, which is still how most banks exchange data.
- Message queues, when work must continue even if one side is switched off.
- Direct database links, when there is no other option — carefully, and with a record of what was read or written.
The important part is not the method. It is knowing what to do when a transfer fails at two in the morning, and making sure somebody is told.
Moving data to a new system
Replacing a system means moving its data, and proving the new figures match the old ones. We treat that proof as part of the work, not as something done at the end if there is time.
- Reading data out of the old system, including the parts nobody documented.
- Cleaning and correcting it, with a record of every change.
- Loading it into the new system.
- Comparing the two, in total and line by line, until the difference is zero or explained.
Reports and figures
A report is only useful if two people asking the same question get the same answer.
We build reporting that agrees with the accounts, runs the same way every time, and shows where each figure came from. Where a report replaces a spreadsheet that someone maintained by hand, we make sure the new version can be checked against the old one before the old one is switched off.
Replacing manual work
Repeated manual steps are slow, and they are where mistakes come from. We replace them with something that runs on its own, keeps a record of what it did, and reports a problem to a person instead of failing quietly.
This is often the fastest improvement available to a finance team, and it rarely requires replacing anything large.
Applications and services
When no product on the market fits, we design and build one. Applications for your staff, services for your other systems, or a portal for your customers.
We keep the requirements ordinary: works in a normal browser, works on a reasonable connection, and does not need special software installed on every desk.
Where it runs
Some of our clients cannot move data outside their own building, for legal reasons or as a matter of policy. Others prefer not to run servers at all.
We build so the same software can run in your own data centre or with a cloud provider, and so that the choice stays yours rather than being fixed by the design.
Security and keeping data private
Financial and personal data has rules attached to it. We work with those rules in mind from the start: access limited to the people who need it, a record of who saw or changed what, data protected while stored and while moving, and no copying of live data into a test system without removing what identifies people.
Support after go-live
The weeks just after a system starts running are when problems appear. We plan for that period and stay available through it. After that, we agree what maintenance looks like — in writing, with response times you can hold us to.
See the finance and ERP knowledge behind this or ask us about your own systems.