Customer story: How DRJ Accountants rapidly created a secure remote working environment
ABOUT DRJ ACCOUNTANTS
DRJ Accountants have been providing professional accountancy services to clients in a range of business sectors in the Wetherby area since 1979. The firm’s comprehensive portfolio of services include general accountancy, tax returns, payroll, year-end accounts, management accounts, book keeping and VAT, and business formation, all of which involves working with in-depth financial data of its clients..
THE CHALLENGE
With an established office-based team, the COVID-19 situation meant that DRJ Accountants, like thousands of businesses around the country, needed to rethink their approach to remote working very quickly.
The DRJ IT team needed to quickly get their team of users setup to be able to work from home in a safe and productive manner. Traditionally, most of the team worked on desktops, with some using laptops, and the customer had concerns about how some of its core systems would perform in a remote working environment.
THE SOLUTION
Having understood DRJ’s need to install a remote working solution in as quick a time as possible, the PAV team proposed a solution for 20 users with the scope to expand as required depending on the length of the crisis and in case new users needed to be added.
The solution needed to ensure that DRJ’s key systems – Microsoft 365 and SAGE, continued to be accessible to users through a secure VPN into the company’s office in order to protect critical client financial data. Given this, in order to protect against the threat of malware and ransomware, Watchguard solutions were deployed in order to provide enterprise-grade security through a secure connection from the users’ remote devices into their workstations via a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
Multi-factor authentication was also recommended in order to provide an additional layer of security to the firm’s client data, and the PAV team created a RADIUS server to facilitate this. This enabled DRJ’s IT team to control exactly which users can connect to their network, and to do this by maintaining user profiles via a centralised database.
When the solution had been implemented, the PAV team also provided a reference guide for the DRJ IT team, and full training on how to use it efficiently and effectively.
THE RESULT
With the remote working solution that the PAV team provided, the DRJ team have been able to remain productive and continue working effectively during the coronavirus situation. They have been able to do so, and to continue working with their client’s sensitive financial data with the multi-layered security approach that the PAV team built that greatly reduces any threat vector that personal devices on remote networks may otherwise have created.
“The speed at which the PAV team were able to come up with recommendations for our dilemma was really impressive, and their implementation was just as effective. Knowing that our clients trust us with their sensitive financial data means that we always take IT security extremely seriously, and that meant that we wanted a completely safe solution for home working that would not jeopardise the safeguarding of it. That challenge balanced with the speed that everything happened and the need to get our team setup with the tools that they needed meant that the PAV team worked overtime for us to deliver what we needed. They did this and more, and thanks to them we’re delighted to have been able to continue to support our clients throughout the crisis”.
IT Manager, DRJ Accountants
PAV I.T. Services delivers first-class IT Support, Project Delivery, as well as hosted Cloud and IT Security Services to companies of all sizes across the UK. Our customers trust us to optimise their IT infrastructures to boost productivity, maintain high levels of network security and free their time to focus on their business.
