Loughrea irons out wrinkles in euro changeover

When Maura Conroy first began collecting for her Lotto syndicate at work in Loughrea, Co Galway, she used to deduct £6.50 from each member. It amounted to £110.50. Last summer, her company, Irish Drilling, signed up for Ireland's first and only "Euro" town experiment. That participation included the syndicate collection.

So she began converting the Lotto contributions to euros, at #8.25 each, and multiplying it by 17 to make a total of #140.25. However, every time she converted back to pounds, she found herself 5p short. One year on, and there has been no change - literally - even though the syndicate now stands at 16 members.

"It isn't a large amount," she says, but it does lead to confusion. "The difference depends on whether one aggregates before converting, or converts and then aggregates."

Ms Conroy is one of a number of business people in Loughrea who have become euro experts over the last 20 months. It wasn't a forced initiative. The town's chamber of commerce actually suggested the idea back in 1998, after two members had attended a lecture in Galway given by a local accountant, Mr Michael O'Hanlon.

"O'Hanlon had done a thesis on the euro and its impact on small businesses," Mr Michael Callaly, manager of the Loughrea Euro Town Project, explains.

"The chamber got thinking, the Minister of State for Science and Technology (and TD for Galway East) Noel Treacy was approached, and he liked the idea," Callaly recalls. "Next thing, a project management committee had been set up under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, involving Department representatives and Forfas."

Callaly was despatched to live in Loughrea for 20 months, and his first task was to visit the businesses that had successfully applied to participate. "We had over 60 applicants, and 30 were selected, representing the different industries and business sectors, from retail, to manufacturing to professional services. Some were small retail units, others had over 100 employees. We asked them to change as much of their business activity as possible to euros at the beginning of the next financial year."

Flynn Concrete Products was the first company to be declared "Euro-ready" by the Loughrea project, having begun invoicing selected clients and paying suppliers in euros as early as February, 2000. Irish Drilling began using it as its base currency on July 1st, 2000, and was the first company in the State to fully convert its payroll. By the time the EU Economic Affairs Commissioner, Pedro Solbes, visited Loughrea in February this year, many businesses in the town were using euro chequebooks along with Irish pound chequebooks on the same account.

Last November, the project developed and ran training courses for the retail businesses, which were open to all such outlets in the town. The courses focused on the relative value of the two currencies at the till, and the practicalities for staff of taking in Irish pounds and giving change in euros. A number of financial software suppliers began using Loughrea companies as test sites.

Software is proving to be a weakness, even now, according to Maura Conroy. Irish Drilling was using a package supplied by a British-based company. The firm was promised that the software would be fully compatible by March of this year, and is still waiting.

Ms Conroy did her conversions manually, but says this would definitely not be practical for a major company. "We bought a package for stock control, but if that aspect had to be done manually we would still be in Irish pounds now."

Leo McGuinness, proprietor of the newsagent's shop, News 'n' Choose, in the town's main street, believes that the retail sector will be at the "cliff face" early next year when full conversion is implemented. During a seminar held last February to mark Commissioner Solbes's visit, he described his nightmare scenario - long queues at 9 a.m. daily from January 2nd, as his regular customers tried to buy the morning paper for #1.27 and a packet of cigarettes for #4.83, while he was trying to work out how many euros he should give as change for a £10 note.

He is convinced that preparation and training are essential, and believes that Loughrea was lucky to be selected as a guinea pig. His largest task during the project was dual pricing, with 150,000 items in his store, but it did give his staff a chance to become familiar with the relative values.

Among the problems he identified early on was how much to charge for the penny sweet - one of his fastest moving products - and the 10 pence lolly. Charging 13 cents for the standard lollipop is likely to cause "buyer annoyance", he believes, and will certainly complicate the transaction for younger customers.

Gerard Dervan, managing director of Bernard Dervan and Co, a fashion house founded in Loughrea by his father in 1936, agreed to the changeover plan as part of the town project on November 5th, 1999, and began dual pricing in February 2000. This proved to be a major undertaking, but some 95 per cent of stock is priced in the two currencies.

He says it proved to be very difficult for a cash-based business to operate in a currency that did not yet exist in cash form, and the company's accounts software wasn't able to work in two currencies simultaneously. This forced the firm to postpone the changeover, but also to assess its system's readiness for euro changeover continuously.

Mr Dervan has identified several potential problems in the past few months, including the fact that some software packages still don't print the euro symbol, and some companies have begun invoicing in euros without notifying clients in advance.

"When you are getting 700 to 800 invoices in every month, most of them in pounds, it is very easy to miss one or two. We have also found that some companies use both currencies on their despatch notes, but the invoices are in euros only."

Michael Callaly believes the Forfas initiative with Loughrea was a very valuable learning experience, and emphasises the necessity of preparation. "There are many small businesses out there that are waiting for the new software to be tested, and doing nothing more. It is going to be very difficult for them if they haven't got their plans in place."

The "hype" of the Y2K issue before the millennium, and the timing of the euro launch by the EU may have contributed to some of the apathy, he says. "A three-year transition is great in theory, but it coincided here with an economic boom, and there are many people who don't quite realise what is ahead next year."

Maura Conroy of Irish Drilling won't be losing any sleep now, because much of her work is done. "I think it is going to be a bit of a headache until everyone converts. "

Even though her company has been fully compliant since July of last year, it has only received two cheques in euros to date.