Winton builds tomorrow’s neighbourhoods today on future-proofed digital foundations

Winton is an NZX and ASX-listed property development group that specialises in developing integrated and fully master-planned communities. Comprising 30+ subsidiaries across New Zealand and Australia, its diverse portfolio spans the luxury retirement brand Northbrook, Ayrburn’s multi-venue food and wine destination in Arrowtown, and Bravo, a newly opened waterfront restaurant in Auckland.

Key to Winton’s success has been their team’s recognition of the need to evolve their business systems, as Winton continues to grow - ensuring that their digital solutions support the business now and into the future. 

With many large-scale projects currently underway, Winton knows property is much more than buildings. It’s about delivering thriving neighbourhoods that are best by design.

 

Simplifying and streamlining digital systems while supporting business growth

The company structure of Winton is what adds a layer of complexity to its financial operations.

“We're a large group with a lot going on, but we have quite a small finance team. Because of the nature of our business, we don't have sales coming in every day, they come in big blocks, and that process of receiving the money from the customer is all done pursuant to settlement statements prepared by external lawyers acting on the company’s behalf.” 

Winton’s accounting system had served the company well, but, as Chief Financial Officer, Jean McMahon explains, “we completely outgrew it”. Searching for a supplier or customer involved in multiple projects was a manual process, and it lacked functionality (including automated consolidation) that was needed.

“We realised it was time to bring everything together in an integrated system that would allow us to efficiently obtain information across all our entities. MYOB Acumatica solved that problem for us. It could do something quite complicated for a company of our size and within our budget.”

After working closely with the team to gain a deep understanding of their business needs, BDO Digital recommended and implemented MYOB Acumatica (previously MYOB Advanced Business), which ultimately enabled Winton to automate consolidation, access customised reporting and unlock new levels of speed and efficiency across the business. 

A key enabler for their initial launch on the stock exchange

When setting out on their IPO journey back in 2021, Winton was faced with drawing on data from a range of different sources. Preparing an IPO for listing requires, among many other things, three years’ prior financial performance as well as a two-year forecast, which must be reviewed by an independent accountant. 

The MYOB Acumatica solution was pivotal in streamlining this process.

“One of the reasons that we were able to be listed so quickly is because of the speed and accuracy of the information that MYOB Acumatica could provide.”
 

Faster, quality reporting for multi-entity organisations

With MYOB Acumatica, Winton moved from having 30+ MYOB AccountRight files to a single, integrated setup. With the addition of Velixo, it automated consolidation across the entire enterprise and can drill down further when required.
 

Unique sales reports uncover powerful insights

Jean says she’s a “big believer in using technology to improve your job” and when it comes to efficiency gains, MYOB Acumatica doesn’t disappoint. The quality of data that Winton can now access enables the finance team to report data as needed by the business in real-time, uncovering some powerful insights.
 

Powerful system with limitless potential

Now that the team has had “a taste for the efficiency”, Jean says they’re moving on to “bigger and better things” – something they wouldn’t have been able to do without MYOB Acumatica.

She says it has “changed our day-to-day job”, which means her team can start thinking beyond the mundane and do more interesting things that add value in other areas of the business.

Pre-set templates for speedy settlements

Then there’s the ability for Jean’s team to create templates which have introduced new levels of efficiency to their settlement process.

“We’ve been able to create one settlement template and then apply it to all purchases - it’s just so fast.”
 

Bank-feeds reducing admin workload

Another feature that was an “absolute must-have” for Winton was automated bank feeds. Jean says they couldn’t afford to have someone manually exporting and inputting bank statements, which was quite often the case with larger ERP systems on the market. 

BDO Digital’s agnostic approach to systems selection means we only recommend solutions that are best suited to your unique requirements. In Winton’s case, MYOB Acumatica ticked all the boxes. 

Having worked with different systems throughout her career, Jean says she never expected to find a solution that catered to all their nuances and complexities. 

“It has been such a positive experience. It encouraged us to not accept the norm, that if something is slow and prone to error, there’s likely a way to do things better.”

She encourages other groups to “explore its absolute fullness to see if it’s suitable for them, because it is such a powerful system.”

“MYOB Acumatica is such a powerful system and we’re so pleased with how we’ve been able to refine it for our business. We’re confident that as our business grows, our system will be able to adapt to it.”
 

Key benefits since implementing MYOB Acumatica:

• Dynamic ERP platform can be customised and scaled to suit your business needs.

• Automated consolidation provides senior leadership with high-level, real-time insights.

• Powerful reporting functionality enables in-depth sales insights.

• Velixo integration enables fast and accurate reporting across the company.

• Productivity gains: increased capacity with the same FTE.

• Automated bank feeds keep manual data entry to a minimum.