Intro

As AAB expands across the UK and Ireland through organic growth and acquisitions, unified resource management is critical to supporting the firm’s scale.

Across one of AAB’s largest audit units—comprising over 200 people across 7 locations—Resource Management team established a centralized resource management structure using Retain.

The primary objective: move away from isolated, office-by-office scheduling and operate as a fully integrated, firm-wide resource pool.

“The approach we are looking to adopt is to centralise resource and assess capacity and need on a group wise basis, beyond a localised view.”

Catherine Teenan, Resource Manager, AAB

The Operational Need

Transitioning from Localised Schedules to Firm-Wide Visibility

Prior to centralising the function, resource planning across offices was managed largely at a regional level. Local teams naturally had the closest visibility of the people and work within their own offices, while opportunities to share capacity across the wider business were less visible.

As AAB continued to grow, this created a number of opportunities to improve how resource was managed across the wider audit unit:

  • Regional Visibility: Teams had strong knowledge of their local people and assignments, while a broader view of firm-wide capacity was more difficult to maintain.
  • Sharing Available Capacity: With teams planning around their own upcoming workloads, opportunities to share available capacity across offices were not always immediately visible.
  • Consistent Booking Practices: Different approaches to scheduling and forecasting across locations made it harder to establish a consistent picture of firm-wide availability.
  • Consistent Booking Practices: Different approaches to scheduling and forecasting across locations made it harder to establish a consistent picture of firm-wide availability.

To address this, the resource management team used Retain to establish consistent booking standards and build a single, transparent view of availability across all 7 offices.

The Strategy

With over 200 people in the audit unit, relying on informal networks or memory to deploy staff was impossible.

“ With over 200 people in the unit, it’s naturally difficult to have a detailed view of everyone’s experience, so having that information more accessible would be really useful.”

Retain provided the structure required to manage high-volume scheduling centrally, ensuring the right people were placed on the right jobs based on actual skill and availability.

Unlocking Capability with Retain’s Skills Matrix

To ensure staff are deployed effectively across offices, AAB is building a centralized Skills Matrix directly within Retain.

Previously, specific sector experience—such as expertise in Charities, Energy, Oil & Gas, Stock Takes, and Consolidations—was tracked on a local basis.

By centralising this data into Retain, AAB achieves clear operational advantages:

  • Instant Skill Matching: Quickly identify available staff with specific sector experience across any location without having to ask around.
  • Breaking Geographic Barriers: Allocate work based on true capability rather than office location.
  • Risk Mitigation & Succession: Identify capability gaps early (e.g., key person risk or transition) so training can be proactively targeted to maintain balance.
  • Scheduled Skill Audits: Establishing structured skills reviews twice a year (aligned with annual reviews and six-month check-ins) to keep skill profiles up to date.

“I think having that matrix would give us a much better view across the different locations and make it easier to share skills and experience across the wider team.”

Efficient Cyclical Planning

With audit work following established annual cycles, having a clear view of previous schedules provides a useful foundation for planning ahead.

Retain’s roll-forward functionality allows AAB to build on existing schedules when preparing for future periods, helping to streamline the planning process and maintain visibility across the year.

“There’s a lot of roll-forward planning because our work is so cyclical, and I think having that capability in Retain has made the process easier.”

Greater Visibility to Support Resource Planning

One of the key benefits of Retain has been the greater visibility it provides across schedules, capacity and upcoming demand.

For the Resource Management team, having a more complete view of the team makes it easier to plan ahead, identify available capacity and support a more joined-up approach to resource planning across the 200+ person audit unit.

 “The biggest benefit has been greater visibility. Having a clearer view of capacity across the team makes it easier to plan ahead and minimise gaps between assignments.”

By bringing schedules and resource information together in one place, Retain has given AAB a clearer view of capacity across the wider team and supported a more centralised approach to resource planning.

While the impact on utilisation is difficult to isolate precisely, AAB estimates that the improved visibility and approach to resource planning has contributed to an approximately 10% improvement in utilisation across the audit unit.

Future Growth Roadmap

AAB continues to expand its resource management capabilities in partnership with Retain by:

  • Advanced Analytics & Reporting: Utilising deeper Retain reporting tools to analyse forward capacity and long-term demand trends.
  • Scaling Skill Mapping: Expanding Skills Matrix coverage to support seamless cross-office collaboration as AAB continues its acquisition growth.

Impact Summary

  • 200+ People Managed: Centralised scheduling across a major audit unit.
  • 7 Locations Connected: Unified into a single, collaborative resource pool.
  • 10% Utilisation Improvement: Achieved through total schedule visibility and proactive gap management.
  • 12-Month Horizon: Long-term capacity planning powered by Retain roll-forward automation.
  • 2x Annual Reviews: Structured bi-annual skills updating embedded into firm processes.

Recommendation

Having worked with a range of resource management platforms throughout her career, Catherine sees value in Retain’s approach to resource planning, particularly within the accountancy sector.

“Retain works well for our needs, particularly in audit, where resource requirements are cyclical and having a clear view of capacity and future demand is so important.” 

Retain provides AAB with greater visibility across schedules, capacity and skills, supporting a more connected approach to resource planning as the firm continues to grow.