When Sumer needed to maintain individual oversight of compliance across its hubs while ensuring a unified, central compliance function, they turned to Skillcast.
"With Skillcast’s multi-tenanted Compliance Portal, we were able to seamlessly unify over 14 hubs under one brand while preserving individual oversight. Our collaboration delivered a tailored, efficient, and scalable compliance solution—ensuring regulatory excellence without disrupting business as usual."
Background
Sumer champions small to medium-sized businesses across the UK and Ireland and are a collaboration of the best in business services. They bring together the indispensable value of leading regional practices with the tech, scale and breadth of expertise that only a national organisation can muster, in just two years they have become the 13th largest, and fastest growing, accounting firm in the UK.
Compliance Team
Jules McKittrick joined Sumer in April 2023 as the Chief Risk & Compliance Officer. As Sumer grew, so did the need to bring in Neil Stonehouse as Head of Compliance. Both Jules and Neil had previously worked with Skillcast and trusted us to help them achieve their goals.
Challenge
As a regulated business, it was essential that the individual hubs retained their own oversight and management of their compliance processes, operating as business as usual but with a central compliance function providing best-in-class service.
The tasks for Sumer and Skillcast were to cater for the individual needs of multiple hubs (14 and growing), while creating a unifying brand and common compliance processes.
Solution
Skillcast were able to support with their Multi-tenanted Compliance Portal. This ensured that each firm had their own unique space within the portal, with custom delivery of:
- CPD schemes
- Content
- Workflows for Declarations and Registers
- Email communications
- Reporting
While serving consistent learning, policies and approaches across the businesses with one consolidated compliance portal.
By choosing the Skillcast Premium service, Sumer was able to deliver a one-stop solution covering:
- Learning Management System
- Offline training records
- CPD scheme management
- Policy Hub
- Gifts & Hospitality Registers• Declarations
- Content Hosting to share internal materials
Configuring this toolset was a truly collaborative experience, with Neil working closely with the Skillcast Success Manager, Mandy Vella, to ensure a seamless set-up and delivery. The process involved:
- Branding and customisation to ensure consistent branding for all users.
- User provisioning of linking to the HR data for each hub and setting permissions, and applying restricted access where necessary to meet specific needs.
- Configuration of multiple CPD schemes and integrated offline activity tracking.
- Creation of custom declarations with alert notifications for approval requirements were created for each Hub
Policy Management set up, with policies uploaded, and approval workflows implemented for effective compliance tracking.
Configuration of Gifts & Hospitality, Donation & Sponsorship, and Breach Registers, each with a customized workflow tailored to Sumer’s specific needs, ensuring efficient tracking and approvals.
Outcomes
Sumer's partnership with Skillcast saw a number of improvements in the management and oversight of its compliance processes:
- Enhanced oversight -A consolidated reporting dashboard provided the central compliance team with clear visibility of all compliance activities.
- Improved monitoring - Each firm maintained independent compliance tracking, ensuring accountability at the local level.
- Group-wide transparency - Neil, as Head of Compliance, could efficiently oversee and manage compliance across the entire Sumer group.
By proactively addressing Sumer's needs and offering best-practice recommendations, Skillcast ensured a smooth and efficient onboarding process, laying a solid foundation for long-term compliance success.
