How Isle Of Skye Candles Reinvested For Growth With Float

The Isle of Skye Candle Company’s first batch of candles was made in a converted croft on the Isle of Skye in 2006, and since then the company has been lighting up across Scotland and the UK.

The small team opened a new workshop and shop on Skye in 2011, and shops opened in Edinburgh, Inverness and historic St Andrews in 2014, then in Glasgow in 2015.

A better way of cash flow forecasting

At the end of 2016, Isle of Skye Candle Company’s operations manager, Iain McNiven, signed up to Xero and Float simultaneously, to move all accounting and finance onto the cloud.

Iain said: “We were at a point where we needed a better method for cash flow, using spreadsheets had become a bit of a nightmare: there was no real visibility of what was happening in coming months and to a certain extent we couldn’t tell what was ahead of us.

“Our business can be seasonal, and we’re ambitious, so it’s essential we know how much cash we have to cover expenses and also set aside for investment.

“We use cloud-based software for almost everything, so Xero and Float were an obvious next step. The combination of both of them changes everything.

“All the data from Xero goes into Float, and you can see where you are at a glance. Whenever I had a question or needed more instruction, someone from Float would be in touch within 24 hours.

“I can’t even begin to estimate how many hours I spent on excel doing instantly out-of-date cash flow projections; Float has given me a lot of time back in the day to get on with my real job.”