BCRS Business Loans
BCRS Business Loans is a not-for-profit business loans company, based in the Black Country, with a loan book worth more than £10 million. The company makes loans to businesses where the banks refuse to do so and by doing so boosts the region’s economy by an estimated £60 million annually.
Stephen Deakin, the company’s Finance Director, first contacted us in January 2016. He said: “Our business brings us into contact with many different accountancy firms, but as soon as I first made contact with Steve I could see that AGS are not like traditional accountants.
“It was the business advice offered by Steve and AGS – going well beyond traditional core accountancy services – which drove our decision to work with the firm.”
Since then, AGS has advised extensively on the implementation of Lean techniques across the two main processes in the business.
Stephen said: “Steve’s advice on the implementation of Lean in our business has been invaluable. He has already helped us substantially reduce wastage and increase efficiency.
“With ambitious plans for expansion in the pipeline, Steve’s advice looks set to enable us to achieve our growth targets without any increase in cost ratios.”
He said he had confidence in the decision to work with Steve and AGS from the start, as Steve had already implemented Lean techniques in his own business: “Steve brought with him a first-hand understanding of the challenges involved in implementing Lean in a financial services company. We simply wouldn’t have got this from other advisers, who generally specialise in implementing Lean techniques in manufacturing processes.”
In addition to working with BCRS Business Loans on Lean implementation, we have also provided our state-of-the-art AGS Virtual Accountant software to the company.
“We’ve only been using AGS Virtual Accountant for the last three months, but the benefits are already evident. We expect that the time taken to produce our management accounts will eventually fall from four weeks to five days, thanks to this system,” said Stephen.
BCRS Business Loans is already looking at implementing some of these other products.
When asked if he would recommend AGS to others, Stephen said: “I’d recommend AGS to absolutely anyone and, indeed, have already done so.”
