Bike Science was established in March 2010 by Andy Sexton. Andy has over twenty-five years of competitive biking experience and spent over twenty years competing as a triathlete. Bike Science is a bike retailer which also offers a premium service around bike fitting – optimizing a bike for its new owner. Andy sells bikes from his store in Bristol, and also retails a range of accessories via his website. As a new business owner, he was looking for a solution which would help him run the business smoothly – knowing that as a one-person operation, time was short.
Integration, remote access and backup included
His biggest concerns were around having an integrated system that would backup all his data and enable him to manage his accounts simply and easily. Andy had left his previous company and his experience of using business systems there had not been entirely positive – the company was using Actinic to run their website, but they had become frustrated with the lack of remote access, the poor database capabilities and no automatic back-up. Through their research into new solutions, the business discovered Brightpearl. At that stage Andy left the business and having trialled Brightpearl for the previous company, he knew it could do what he wanted for his new venture.
Having deployed Brightpearl within his business, Andy experiences the benefits of the system every day. The platform offers seamless integration across all the different modules that he uses – CRM, accounts, products and his website. He no longer has to worry about backup because all his data is stored safely and is available immediately online, as soon as he logs in. As a business owner who manages almost everything himself, Brightpearl saves Andy lots of time and importantly means he can stay on top of his accounts throughout the financial year.
Andy explains how he uses Brightpearl in more detail...
Keeping up to date
"It’s very easy to enter accounting data as you go, so my finances are always up to date. Remote access to the system via an internet connection means my working life is a lot more flexible – I can work from my shop and office, or from home; and now my business is growing, my admin support staff can also log in wherever they are and see exactly the same view of the business.
Easy to use
I have found Brightpearl much easier to use than the traditional alternatives. If I had to manage my accounts using Sage, it just wouldn’t get done! In my view the accounts practically take care of themselves. Equally I love having a solution that brings all my business processes together: Being a one-person operation, I couldn’t do everything I do today if I didn’t have Brightpearl and its integrated approach."
