Sheil Kinnear Limited

One of the primary objectives of an Accountancy Practice is to keep their clients on the right side of the tax laws. However, to be able to do this, it’s imperative that the firm can respond to an audit swiftly and comprehensively as auditors can request evidence from up to six years prior.

Sheil Kinnear Limited are a firm of Chartered Accountants based in County Wexford, Ireland. Currently, the firm employs 25 people which include accountants and office staff. Sheil Kinnear Limited have an illustrious history which spans over 100 years making them the largest and longest established accountancy practice in the South East.

Challenge

Sheil Kinnear Limited needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure as it no longer supported the expanding needs of their business.

Data backup was one of the practice’s major concerns. Like many accountancy firms, tape was employed to preserve data but the Sheil Kinnear Limited team wanted to look at alternative solutions. Backups were run overnight but since they started to require multiple tapes the process had become more difficult to manage. The firm had almost 600GB of data in total, and every file was imperative to their business.

Security was another priority for Sheil Kinnear Limited. They were aware that threats from ransomware and hackers are on the rise. Strict data laws and extensive audits mean that accountants can’t leave anything to chance when it comes to data availability and management. Sheil Kinnear Limited have 25 staff working on client assignments, so any ‘downtime’ would not be acceptable. Like most accountancy firms, Sheil Kinnear Limited’s staff are billable by the hour so if they can’t work, they can’t make money.

Solution

Whilst Sheil Kinnear Limited are accounting experts, for the last 15 years, they have depended on the IT advice of ICT Solutions Provider Datapac.

Datapac suggested a Datto ALTO 2 – backup and business continuity solution designed specifically for small business. The new solution would allow Sheil Kinnear Limited to leverage secure Hybrid Cloud technology at an affordable cost. Although the firm was initially concerned by cloud technology, Datapac reassured them of its long-lasting benefits.

Benefits

For Sheil Kinnear Limited, Datto’s Virtualisation capabilities made Datto the perfect choice. It would mean that they’d never need to be down again.

Other benefits included a reduction in manual intervention and an increase in the number of backups taken throughout the day. With tape, only one backup was taken – so if the system failed at 5pm, the firm would lose its whole days’ work. The new solution now ensures that backups are made without any errors and corruption – a distinct advantage over tape which is very prone to failure.

Sheil Kinnear Limited experienced no disruption during the installation and Datapac continues to monitor the device and subsequent backups, cost-effectively alleviating Sheil Kinnear Limited of this chore.

Commenting on the project Tom Brazil, director, Sheil Kinnear Limited said “Once again Datapac delivered exactly what we were looking for and it’s great to have the peace of mind that comes with our new backup and business continuity solution. Now even if our server fails we can be back up and running within minutes, ready to deliver reliable advice and assistance to all our clients.”