CLIENTS SOLUTION ASSOCIATE LIMITED

Clients Assistant Software

Accounting, Invoicing, Making Tax Digital for VAT returns and Payroll management process and submissions for employees.

Features

• Management of Payables and Receivables via the Accounting module
• Invoicing,Bank Reconciliations and Making Tax Digital VAT Returns
• Importing and submitting VAT Returns from uploaded spreadsheets
• Manage payroll processes for employees HMRC Submissions FPS and EPS
• Automatic calculation of NI and Tax Payroll with the Accounting
• BI Reports and Data Visualization, Dashboards and Data Migration Services
• Ingesting On-Premises Data Files to Cloud Storage
• Data Movements,Transformations with Azure Data Factory and Power BI
• Processing Blob Storage and IOT Hub Input with Streaming Analytics
• Analysing, Cleaning and Transforming Data in Azure Databricks

Benefits

• Leverages on microsoft's pricing unit for consuming Azure Cloud Services
• Manage payroll processes for employees
• Notification of VAT Returns due date on the move.

£787 to £888 a virtual machine

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at kehinde.sorunke@clientssolutionassociate.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

877729459360358

Contact

Kehinde Sorunke
+447747685902
kehinde.sorunke@clientssolutionassociate.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: Planned arrangements due to software upgrades which include enhancements and additional functionalities would always be communicated to customers before hand as well as the estimated time /window this would take.
• System requirements:
  • Processor: 2 GHz : Dualcore 2x2 GHz /or faster
  • RAM: 2 GB, RAM: 4 GB or more
  • Resolution: 1280 x 720 /: 1920 x 1080
  • Network and internet connection
  • Operating system: MS Windows 7/: MS Windows 10
  • MS Edge, Google Chrome Enterprise 67, Firefox ESR 60

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support response times: Acknowledgement of the ticket comes within 30 minutes and then the nature of the request will determine the subsequent response times. But it is the standard that users are kept updated within every 2 hours after the initial response from the acknowledgement .
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: No
• Support levels: What we provide is application support only, should in case the user is having issue with any area or functionality in the app on deployed cloud based data engineering solutions
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Users can sign on the web application by creating an account. This automatically creates an instance of the application for the user to use. At the moment, we provide online training and we have online user documentation to guide the users through on how to navigate and use the app. It is our intention that we will be able to provide onsite training, but would be at additional cost.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: HTML
• End-of-contract data extraction: Users can access the data in Excel via ODBC connection.
• End-of-contract process: No matter how the contract or agreement ends, the information stored in Clients Assistant remains the customer information and the customer can access it in a format provided by Clients Assistant before the end of the contract.; If the customer wishes to access their information after contract or agreement has ended, the customer would agree to pay our reasonable charges for that access.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: No
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 A
• API: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Users or customers applications are provisioned under the Azure Platform As a Service feature. We deploy customers apps under the Standard; and Premium features which allows for Automatic scaling capabilities

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: From App side: CPU Percentage, Memory Percentage, Data In, Data Out, Disk Queue Length, Http Queue Length, Requests,; From Azure Database side: Blocked by firewall, CPU percentage, Data IO percentage, Data space allocated, Data space used, Data space used percent, Deadlocks, DTU limit, DTU percentage, Failed connections, In-Memory OLTP storage percent, Sessions percentage, Successful connections, Workers percentage, SQL Server process core percent, SQL server process memory percent, Tempdb Data file Size kilobytes, Tempdb log file size kilobytes, Tempdb Percent log used.

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Other
• Other data at rest protection approach: Encryption at rest is automatically enabled for Azure SQL Database instances on the Cloud and this is what we use.; ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-service-encryption
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: There is Export to Excel button on relevant screens that allow that users can click to export data to Excel.
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks:
  • Private network or public sector network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: For data in transit, Azure uses industry-standard secure transport protocols, such as TLS/SSL, between user devices and Microsoft datacenters. You can enable encryption for traffic between your own virtual machines (VMs) and your users. With Azure Virtual Networks, you can use the industry-standard IPsec protocol to encrypt traffic between your corporate VPN gateway and Azure as well as between the VMs located on your Virtual Network.
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: See our service terms at https://www.clientsassistant.com/csaerpapp/termsandprivacy
• Approach to resilience: As our applications are deployed to Azure platform, our approach to resilience depends solely on Microsoft and this is available at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/global-datacenters; and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/
• Outage reporting: Email alerts which is configurable for each Client on Microsoft Azure Cloud. Users can have a high level of service outage from Microsoft using the link as well https://status.azure.com/en-gb/status

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Clients Assistant application allows for addition of users and assignment of relevant roles to the added users. Roles include Administrator, Standard, View Only , Accountant and Employee. Administrators have access to features in the app, assign administrative roles to others, add new business or client among others.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users receive audit information on a regular basis
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: Identification of the the security decisions that need to be made in the organisation. The approach also include identifying the people who will make them as well as the information required to make sensible and informed choices
• Information security policies and processes: To be completed

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: We have in-house formal standard operating procedures (SOP) governing the change management process. These SOPs cover both software development and release management, and are consistent with established regulatory guidelines.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: As our apps are hosted on Azure Cloud, we follow recommendations from Azure Security Center on performing vulnerability assessments; on our Azure virtual machines, container images, and SQL servers.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We rely on sophisticated software-defined service instrumentation and monitoring provided by Microsoft Azure. This integrates at the component level and server level, providing visibility when a service disruption is occurring and pinpointing its cause.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: Even though we rely on the robust processes developed by Microsoft to facilitate a coordinated response to incidents, we have the help desk software where users can log incident requests relating to the usage and we can then follow through.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  We acknowledge that going serverless is one of the most effective methods for a business to decrease carbon footprint and the more reason our application and customer instances that would be provisioned are hosted on the cloud rather than on-premise environments. Our databases and web apps are hosted on Azure databases and Azure virtual machines.

  Covid-19 recovery

  Everyone's health and welfare are a priority to our organisation and this necessitates that our employees work from home, while collaborating online to ensure our business continuity.

  Equal opportunity

  We are working to ensure that our products are more accessible to the wider communities of application users. We recognise the need for our applications to be usable by the disabled community and we are still a work in progress to achieve this.

  Wellbeing

  We provide employee guidance on working from home which includes advice on issues such as comfort, stretching and energising, communication, and medical emergencies.

Pricing

• Price: £787 to £888 a virtual machine
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: All the features of the software : Accounting and Finance, Payroll, HR and Making Tax Digital for VAT submissions
• Link to free trial: https://www.clientsassistant.com/

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at kehinde.sorunke@clientssolutionassociate.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.