How TDM Group Helped Abacus Resource Solutions
Unify Revenue Reporting with Power BI

Company profile

Abacus Resource Solutions (Abacus) operates under the umbrella of a UK-based business that invests in and grows recruitment companies.

Abacus was established to augment these recruitment companies by providing bespoke finance and accounting solutions that enhance operational efficiency and financial resilience. The delivery of centralised back-office services to these independently managed recruitment businesses has allowed Abacus to evolve into their operational backbone – freeing them to focus on growth and delivery.

The Challenge

Fragmented and Inefficient Revenue Reporting

In contrast to a traditional business that operates as a single entity with a board of directors, Abacus consists of eight trading companies, each managed by its own Managing Director (MD). Consequently, multiple CRM systems are used across the Abacus Group. This resulted in a fragmented, manual revenue reporting process that created distinct business challenges:

Data and integration inefficiencies

Disparate CRM systems with inconsistent data structures complicated integration with the Abacus invoicing platform, resulting in inaccurate revenue forecasts
Linking CRM placement data to invoices became inconsistent
Data migration complexity, including handling historical data

Reporting barriers

Inconsistent CRM entries created reporting inaccuracies
Excel-based consolidation was slow and error-prone, preventing timely, informed decision-making
Without real-time, granular reporting across the business (individual, team, company, and group level), accurate revenue overview wasn’t possible

Security and compliance risks

Manual processes involved in managing financial and personal data increased operational complexity and made maintaining security and GDPR compliance more challenging
No unified role-based access control to ensure appropriate data visibility and privacy

The Solution

Tailored Power BI Project

TDM Group focuses on being an IT partner, not just a supplier. This collaborative approach to leveraging technology laid the foundations for overcoming the challenges Abacus faced. Crucially, TDM Group’s technical team, including solutions architects and Power BI specialists, were involved early in the planning process.

Their technical guys were involved in all of the scoping calls, so we had face time with the team delivering the project early in the process, which was really important, rather than scoping the project ourselves and handing over our requirements to TDM Group.

Tom Haines, Group Operations Director at Abacus

This collaborative process led to the development and deployment of a tailored Power BI project that directly addresses Abacus’s pain points and aligns with its objectives.

The solution automatically extracts data from different CRMs across the organisation in a unified structure and access it via PermMargin – a custom single pane of glass dashboard that allows decision-makers to view data-driven insights centrally for faster, more informed choices. TDM Group provided tailored user training, enabling them to access accurate data and gain meaningful insights.

TDM Group also built a revenue forecasting app that analyses and reports on CRM pipeline data for each recruitment company for the next three months in a unified format. The data is securely saved in the cloud and reflected in the Power BI report via PermMargin. This replaced a less formal forecasting process whereby MDs shared verbal updates that were difficult to track and compare with actual results.

Reduce manual reporting with integrated data

The Benefits

Accessible, Accurate and Accountable Information

With fragmented, manual processes replaced by a consolidated, automated system, TDM Group helped Abacus modernise its reporting and forecasting – delivering information that is clear, precise, and actionable.

This has translated into transformative business benefits:

Accurate revenue overview at every level of the business supports realistic financial targets and informed decision-making.
Precise and accountable forecasts provide transparency around performance, elevating strategic targets.
Seamless integration of disparate CRM systems with the Abacus invoicing platform enables consistent and reliable reporting.
Intuitive adoption of PermMargin empowers users to realise its benefits.
Consolidated revenue reporting via PermMargin provides a clear view of the business’s financial posture across the group.
Unified role-based access controls across systems reinforce data integrity and security.

Tom underscored the business benefits of the Power BI project

We now have greater visibility and accuracy in forecasting, our pipeline is clearer and, if required, we can understand underperformance.

Contact us to turn fragmented CRM data into trusted, decision-ready Power BI dashboards:

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