1. “A truly powerful management and financial tool that
our financiers have come to trust”
Background
TCG is a managed pub and bar restaurant business with
over 70 venues in the UK, including the famous
Ta ershall Castle paddle steamer moored on the
Thames in London.
The Challenge
In an increasingly tough trading environment, TCG
required a financial planning solu on that would enable
them to maintain ght control of their cash and profit
posi ons. They needed a rolling 3 year budget and
forecas ng model, integrated to their General Ledgers
and wanted to remove Excel from the process given its
inherent challenges.
The Solu on
Working closely with Tahola, TCG chose IBM Cognos
Planning and asked Tahola to implement and manage
their solu on. “We chose Tahola because of their
technical competence and knowledge of the hospitality
sector”, says Paul Bignell, IS Manager at TCG. “We set
them a challenging task”.
The result is that TCG now have monthly profit, cash
flow, funds flow and balance sheet projec ons, all
mapped to — and fed from — their monthly General
Ledger trial balances.
TCG’s Performance Indicators allow them to monitor
actual vs budget/forecast and, says Bignell, “encourage
us to sensi se our forecasts and to report variances in
actual cash movements vs our cash projec ons”.
TCG have a Managed Solu on from Tahola. This means
TCG specified in detail what they required, using Excel
spreadsheets to demonstrate the complex calcula ons.
Tahola then built ‐ and now maintain ‐ all of TCG’s
financial models. This has enabled them to achieve
automa c re‐forecas ng based on actual movements:
profit, cash and working capital requirements at Group,
Company and House level.
Tahola also helped TCG to integrate Cognos Planning
into its data warehouse where they maintain previous
budgets and forecasts for both comparison and
integra on with Epos, Payroll and General Ledger
transac ons. The Cognos Planning output can then be
manipulated by any Loca on a ribute.
Bignell believes robustness and flexibility are the major
strengths of the Cognos Planning system. “It is the first
system I would put into any company, especially where
financial resources are scarce. It is a truly powerful
management and financial tool that our financiers have
come to trust”.
“All our managers have visibility of one version of the
truth — there are no hiding places in a fully integrated
model. It is a truly transparent process and we now
have strong control of both our profit and cash
posi on”.
The Benefits
 Fully integrated model and transparent process
 Strong control of profit and cash posi on
 Automa c re‐forecas ng
 Financiers will trust a professionally built model
 Robust and flexible solu on.
“Cognos Planning is the first system I would put
into any company, especially in an environment
where financial resources are scarce”
Paul Bignell, Informa on Systems Manager
Tahola Ltd, Viking House, Swallowdale Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 7EA
Telephone 01442 211122 www.tahola.co.uk