The starting point
Hadfields were already in the cloud — but the cloud wasn't working for them. Their existing hosted environment was poorly supported: issues took too long to resolve, nobody on the provider side seemed to understand how an accountancy practice actually works, and the platform had become something the team worked around rather than with.
For a practice, that's more than an annoyance. When your practice management, bookkeeping and tax software all live in a hosted environment, that environment is the office. If it's slow, unreliable or unsupported, everything from bookkeeping to filing deadlines feels it.
Understanding before building
We didn't start with a spec sheet. We started by sitting down with Hadfields and mapping out how the practice actually runs — which applications each role depends on, where the client data lives, which versions of which software were in use, and where the current environment was letting them down.
That discovery shaped everything that followed: the sizing of the new environment, the migration order, and the out-of-hours schedule.
What we built
We designed and deployed a new Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environment with FSLogix profile containers. FSLogix means each user's profile — settings, Outlook cache, application state — follows them instantly to whichever session host they land on. Logins are fast, profiles don't corrupt or bloat, and the experience is consistent every single day.
Managed RDS platform
A properly sized, centrally managed session environment — one place where the whole practice works, from any device, anywhere.
FSLogix profiles
Fast, consistent logins with roaming profiles that just work — no more waiting on profile loads or losing settings between sessions.
Practice software, handled
Sage 50 Accounts across three versions (v32, v33 and v34), IRIS and TaxCalc — installed, configured and data-migrated by us.
Support that understands practices
Direct access to the engineers who built and run the environment, who know what a filing deadline means.
The migration — all out of hours
The one non-negotiable was that the practice couldn't stop working. So it didn't. Every stage of the onboarding and migration — databases, applications, user profiles and data — was planned into out-of-hours windows and carried out overnight and at weekends.
Discovery & planning
Requirements mapped with the practice: applications, versions, data locations, users and roles.
Build
New RDS environment deployed and configured with FSLogix, sized for the practice today with headroom for growth.
Application & data migration
Sage 50 Accounts (v32, v33 and v34), IRIS and TaxCalc migrated alongside their databases — all out of hours.
Cutover & support
Staff logged in to the new environment on Monday morning and got on with the day. We stayed close through the first weeks and manage it ongoing.
The result
Hadfields now work in an environment that's fast, consistent and properly supported — built by people who took the time to understand the practice before touching a server. Operations weren't affected during the move, and the team simply arrived to a platform that worked better than the one they left behind.