Ambassador Cruise Line set sail

New cruise line select Sage Intacct ready for maiden voyage

3rd November 2021

Ambassador Cruise Line is the first new British cruise line to be launched since 2010 and is setting the bar high. Aiming for the friendliest and most diverse crew, Ambassador have also publicised their rigorous environmental standards and practices. We spoke to Head of Finance Mo Parvez about choosing Sage Intacct for this exciting new venture.

High expectations 

Mo joins a highly experienced team of travel professionals, who have the opportunity to create a company from scratch and ensure perfection at every stage. They clearly know what they are doing; the first voyage isn't until spring 2022, yet Ambassador has already secured an impressive amount of bookings, indicating the strength of the market.   

The travel industry and its data needs are challenging, and Mo is exacting in his choice of ERP too. “We have the opportunity to get everything right from day one. We need a system that's not going to just meet our requirements now, but be future proof as we expect a serious amount of expansion over the next couple of years. We want a system that could speak to us, and provide us all the information we need.”  

Why Sage Intacct 

Mo is familiar with Sage products and looked at Sage X3 before deciding Sage Intacct was the right fit. “I found Intacct most appropriate for us” he explained, “I like that it's modular, intuitive, and the dashboard level of reporting is great, especially for our data hungry stakeholders.” 

“It’s big enough to scale up, and being cloud-based, we don’t have to buy servers and worry about down time anymore.” 

Partnering with Datel 

Choosing who to partner with was a logical process for Mo who did his initial research online. “I looked up Datel and you seemed the best. I wanted a professional outfit and you responded quickly.” Mo was also impressed by how we interpreted the brief, adding; “Travel is complex, we have to deliver a service which is almost perfect. Customer requirements, billing, logistics - it needs to be seamless for every guest and to do that we have to collect a lot of data.” 

“Tom and Lorna did a good job in understanding our requirements. We were applying pressure and overall it has been a great success.” 

Ready for launch 

The implementation is being split over three stages. First they completed the general ledger and have set up the AP and AR systems. The next stage is to integrate the reservation system before finally combining the MIS system of the vessel to communicate with the back office. 

It’s a massive project, but with Phase One complete, Mo is pleased to see results already. “At the moment we are using Intacct for overheads and invoices. We have just completed our July accounts and using the system generated pleasing results. We were also able to view the information safely and securely on our phones, on the move. The implementation and training from Datel has been excellent and I can see the level of detail in each stage. The next stages will be challenging, but I am so far pleasantly surprised.” 

It has been an absolute pleasure being able to work on such an exciting project, and we can't wait to see how far Ambassador Cruise Line will travel.