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The Numbers Add up for Vincents Chartered Accountants

The Numbers Add up for Vincents Chartered Accountants

Vincents is a boutique firm of specialist accounting experts and business advisers with offices in Brisbane, on the Gold Coast, in Sydney and Townsville. The firm commenced practice in Brisbane in 1989 with the aim of providing litigation support to the legal and insurance sectors. In 2001 Vincents introduced business services and insolvency and reconstruction divisions to complement its forensic operations. The firm has grown significantly and now has 11 partners and over 40 staff.

Network Diagram

When Practice Manager, Christiane Lamb, started working with Vincents some 8 years ago, Vincents' telecommunications system had reached its capacity. "We only had a few analogue lines and a fax line so needed to move to a digital platform and open up internet functionality," she explains. "We'd always had a Samsung system and were happy with the relationship, so we made the decision to upgrade with them."

Meeting the Challenge

"Because we have staff, clients and business partners in four cities, an effective communications system is vital to us," explains Christiane. "Client communications, practice management, plus internal and external administration are all reliant on telecommunications capacity - it keeps us competitive."

Christiane became Project Manager for the installation of the new communications system when it became apparent the existing system had reached its limits and would not be future-proof.

"Our brief was pretty specific," she explains. "With our head office administration based in Brisbane, we wanted our remote staff to feel connected. And we wanted to be able to provide clients with seamless access to our business. The firm needed the communications network to be accessible to everybody in cost effective, efficient and secure ways."

Samsung Communications Centre in Brisbane came up with a staged solution to deliver what Vincents needed, upgrading in the initial stages then later, wholesale replacement of key components.

"Understanding the different technological options was the most difficult part of the decision making process but Samsung's sales and technical staff brought it down to simple terms that were easy to understand. That made it a lot easier for us to assess the merits of each option," explains Christiane.

The Samsung Solution

Vincents wanted value for money without compromising functionality. The result was that during 2005, the firm installed a Samsung OfficeServ500 with IP networking functionality in its Brisbane head office. The OfficeServ500 is Samsung's flagship business communications system. It is a powerful, fully featured voice system with comprehensive IP capability and capacity for up to 600 extensions.

A Samsung OfficeServ100 was installed in both Townsville and Sydney with IP networking back to Brisbane. The OfficeServ 100 is characterised by networking capabilities which mean a remote location can be linked to operate transparently as a single entity.

It also allows all users to benefit from the cost effective sharing of selected features across the network. They can access centralised functionality - from simple call forwarding and transfers to advanced features such as operator services, voice mail and automated attendant.

More recently, Vincents has added an OfficeServ12 at their Gold Coast office - ideal for smaller branch offices or single site applications. The Samsung OfficeServ 12 provides IP and WAN solutions, a full suite of Computer Telephony Integration applications and an impressive range of user features and capabilities to deliver the same advanced user functionality as the head office system.

All the sites are networked together to provide a connected network which allows staff wherever they are to make internal calls over a virtual private network (VPN). Staff share selected features and can access centralised functionality - from simple call forwarding and call transfers to advanced features such as centralised operator services, voice mail, automated attendant and automatic call distribution.

The Results for Vincents

Christiane says that Vincents' communications system is 'just what we wanted.'

"We can pick up the phone and dial an extension to speak to staff in our remote offices, our reception can handle the overflow of calls made to our other offices and our computer network is able to be accessed from our remote offices via the same link in a speedy and secure way," she adds. "It has provided a significant saving in communication, administrative and additional software costs which will amount to thousands of dollars per year."

"There is no doubt that the ability of our staff in any location to, at the touch of a button, contact any other staff member no matter where they are has made everyone feel part of the same team. Clients are also better served as no matter where they are calling from, they can be transferred within the link, to the person most able to help them at no additional cost."

The Future

Christiane is also impressed by the level of future-proofing the new system provides. "On Samsung's recommendation, we allowed for the possibility of future expansion by way of introducing other remote sites such as our Gold Coast office which was set up 12 months later than our other two sites. And as staff numbers increase, we have capabilities within the system for extension cards.

The result is a system and service I would wholeheartedly recommend. Samsung provide good information for decision making without being purely sales driven, they are prompt and dependable and offer a very competitive and reliable product. Also their service extends beyond the point of sale. We're very happy."

Key Business Benefits