Copleys, part of the Domestic & General Group, specialises exclusively in providing unsecured loans for serving and retired police officers, civil staff working in the force, and their families. Long-term users of Welcom Software, they recently upgraded to the latest version of Financier.

With just 4 staff and up to 3,000 customers at any one time, Copleys run a very tight ship. “That’s why computerised assistance in administration has been central to what we do for a number of years”, says Peter Hartley, Managing Director.

After using Welcom Software’s Financier suite of applications for over a decade, they believe the system has some unique advantages for them. “The first thing is that Financier is a well proven package. It’s very robust and over the years Welcom Software has become very knowledgeable in the finance sector.

“An added bonus is the fact that, although Financier is a comprehensive system designed for a whole range of financial services operations, we can just use the elements that are relevant to us. So we get the benefits of a leading solution, without the costs associated with ’big systems’.

“Financier also provides real time support to staff answering customer queries on settlement figures, payments and so on,” explained Peter. “If we need to extend the system’s usage, we simply ’unlock’ the relevant facilities. Another plus point for Welcom Software is the fact that they make even smaller customers feel important. They are willing to provide any necessary bespoke work and offer excellent support. They listen.”

“The refreshing thing,” according to Peter, “is that in upgrading their systems, Welcom Software don’t throw the baby away with the bath water. The new version is just as user friendly and, apart from the new server being faster, users have noticed very little change in operation. Our migration was painless. Having suffered problems with other systems in the past, I know this is far from the norm.”