MacKay LLP is a Canadian Partnership made up of 35 partners and over 220 professional and support staff. The company provides a wide range of accounting, auditing, income tax planning and compliance and consulting services to growing Canadian enterprises in a variety of industries, including entertainment, foresting, oil and gas, automotive, municipalities, government organizations, and all forms of First Nation organizations and enterprises.
Founded 40 years ago, MacKay has offices in Vancouver, Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Kelowna, Surrey, and Calgary. Through related companies, the firm also provides specialized management consulting services, forensic auditing, financial management, financial restructuring and insolvency services.
In order to assist clients with the preparation of financial notes and other disclosure-related services, MacKay staff routinely conducted precedent searches on SEDAR. Because keyword searches are not possible on SEDAR, the staff was left with the daunting task of manually sifting through the search results, a tedious and time-consuming process. And, depending on the type of information needed, they might not even attempt to search for it. With millions of disclosure documents in the SEDAR database, finding executive compensation agreements, for instance, was akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
When MacKay staff couldn't find what they were looking for, they turned to internal documents on file. However, they were often up to a year out of date with the constantly evolving regulatory requirements.
The firm required a solution that would speed up the search process and enable staff to access timely disclosure information on topics ranging from financial notes to business acquisitions and specific company disclosure history.
MacKay partner Garry Cook had been using DisclosureNet since 2003 while employed with another firm, and was one of the first subscribers. Cook immediately recognized the benefits that DisclosureNet could bring to MacKay.
"I knew DisclosureNet could streamline the search for disclosure information significantly, and that everyone who required regular access to this type of information would see immediate value from using it," said Cook. "Even though I know my way around an annual report, DisclosureNet makes it that much faster and easier to find what I'm looking for."
MacKay signed on as an XPI customer in February, 2006, and has been using DisclosureNet ever since.
Improved productivity. "Our search time for precedents, a company's disclosure history, or an obscure piece of information has been reduced from hours to minutes, allowing us to focus on the task at hand rather than searching through numerous, irrelevant documents," said Cook.
Enhanced client services. "The other day I found two sample executive compensation agreements that would have been almost impossible to find without DisclosureNet," continued Cook. "I would have had to go through every hope of a company manually. But with DisclosureNet, I was able to find what I needed and send the samples off to the client that same day."
Reduced risk. "DisclosureNet offers access to the latest disclosure documents, which ensures we're following best practices and providing the most current counsel to our clients," said Cook.
Overall, Cook and his team are extremely pleased with the benefits they've experienced since implementing DisclosureNet.
"Without a doubt, DisclosureNet is a valuable research tool for our organization that has enhanced our ability to conduct business," said Cook. "We definitely plan to evolve with the product."