Accounting for charities and not-for-profits

Hampshire Cultural Trust Implements AccountsIQ Across Both Trust and Trading Entities

Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT) was formed when two Councils decentralised Hampshire’s museums and cultural centres.  Previously posting its financial transactions to the Councils’ centralised SAP system, the newly-formed Trust needed to find an affordable solution which could handle its complex accounting needs across 23 locations, consolidate two legal entities and produce sector-compliant and meaningful reports from Head Office.  With the help of advisors BDO, the Trust chose Cloud accounting and consolidation software AccountsIQ to handle accounting across the estate which comprises 23 museums and art centres.

HCT’s Director of Finance and Resources, Charlie Inigo-Jones, joined the Trust in 2016. Charlie says, “In 2015 the Trust needed to set up its own accounting system very quickly.  Under my predecessor, we simply took AccountsIQ out of the box, imported the general ledger and cost centres from the Council’s system, and started to process its own transactions. That was it!  We have since set up monthly accounts reconciliation and reporting processes, and are now beginning to explore the software’s full potential using multi-dimensional coding to meet our reporting needs.”

Working with AccountsIQ’s charity implementation team, Hampshire Cultural Trust’s project consists of two phases: designing and implementing the system infrastructure and reporting across their 23 locations and at Head Office; and completing a number of integration projects with ticketing, EPOS, payroll and other systems which will bring consistency and efficiencies across the group.

Phase I:  Reporting Across the Trust

As well as 23 locations, the Trust has two separate legal entities, and a number of restricted or programme-based funds which need to be separately accounted for and reported.  Each transaction needs to be posted to the correct location, entity, and fund.

AccountsIQ has enormous potential to produce Management Information Reports.  In order for us to create those automated reporting packs and make dashboards meaningful, we have been working with AccountsIQ’s very flexible coding structure to ensure it is optimised for our purposes.  The ability to define user access and create custom reports will allow us to cascade reporting throughout the Trust in a relevant way. Charlie Inigo-Jones 

AccountsIQ is particularly suited to supporting a charity’s need to account for restricted funds.  Charlie says, “AccountsIQ solves the accounting for restricted funds problem by using a third dimension of coding.  The use of project codes make the information easy to grab.  We could actually set up more layers of coding to extract sub-project information if we needed to.”

Phase II:  Integration and Automation

Many locations across the estate sell entry or event tickets and some incorporate retail outlets and cafes.  HCT has installed two systems on a trial basis which will provide automated ticketing and Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS).

Charlie says, “Introducing ticketing and EPOS systems will help us implement codes at the point of sale, so the system captures what it is we have sold, what for, and the other information we require in order to provide meaningful retail management reporting.  Integration with AccountsIQ will fully automate the process of posting sales from both retail sales systems, and help us to transform our financial and stock control processes.  It will be a massive win when data from each venue can be reconciled to the tills, the bank and amounts received from card payments – all on a daily basis and with clearly defined reporting.”

Alongside their commitment to supporting a better life for everyone affected by epilepsy, national charity Epilepsy Action must contend with some complex financial management challenges. Multiple sources of income, stringent controls over spending and restricted fund requirements, to name a few. That’s before we throw the cost-of-living crisis and an increasingly difficult fundraising environment into the mix.

Undaunted by such challenges, Tony Spinks, Director of Corporate Services with Epilepsy Action, decided to re-assess the systems and processes that would enable the charity to thrive no matter what. His #1 priority was the need to improve management reporting. In particular, he wanted real-time data to make better, quicker decisions about how they allocate resources. 

“We need to be absolutely on top of our financial position. We need complete visibility of what income and expenditure we have coming down the line to make the best decisions for the people who rely on our services. We were using Sage50; it was functional but wasn’t giving us the next level of management reporting we needed.”

Epilepsy Action needed a mid-market accounting solution

With lots of options on the market, choosing a new finance system can be mind boggling. As Tony recognised, Sage 50 is good for start-ups. But Epilepsy Action is a medium-sized organisation with around 70 staff, and they needed the next step up. However, when Tony looked at the Microsoft products and NetSuite, he concluded, “we didn’t need anywhere near that.”

When an invite to an AccountsIQ demo webinar landed in Tony’s in-box, he took 30 minutes out of his day to watch.

“I thought ‘this could be the answer to my problem’. I got in touch and started the journey. The more I saw of the system, the more I was convinced AccountsIQ was what we needed.”

Changing finance system is not as scary as many people think

Epilepsy Action went live with AccountsIQ on 1 January 2023. In the run-up to go-live, Tony and his team structured their training around the AIQ Academy online learning platform. To make it more effective and enjoyable, they introduced a practical, team-based approach to the training.

“The Academy videos are great, but we learn best by doing. We sat down as a team for an hour every Friday to put what we’d learnt into practice. For example, we’d watch the video about how to approve purchase invoices and then go and actually do it. AccountsIQ provide a test environment so it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake, you’re not messing with live data, and you can’t break it.”

Once they’d got to grips with the extra coding functionality that AccountsIQ provides, Tony and his team found the rest of the process of changing finance system easy.

“AccountsIQ is easy to use and our implementation consultant, Helen, was great. Her catchphrase was ‘we’ll just get it done!’ I found the whole process really easy. It’s not as scary as people make out.”

Three months down the line and all the transactional processes are running smoothly. The team are already noticing some significant time saving, particularly around the purchasing processes which used to be very manual. Now, they’re looking at where they can make even more efficiency gains.

“Automating processes is already saving us a huge chunk of time but there’s lots more time saving to come. I’ve got the OData connector working and I’m building the reporting templates. It’s this combination of time saving and financial visibility that will allow us to do more data analysis and really add value to our organisation. Everything I wanted is starting to happen.”

AccountsIQ and Enclude enable the Archdiocese of Dublin to go fully digital

The Archdiocese of Dublin is the largest Diocese in Ireland, with 197 parishes and funds under management that require reporting under new charity SORP regulations. The Archdiocese required an accounting solution that would meet their complex reporting needs whilst also providing a user-friendly system that parishes could easily adopt. This allowed a step-change away from paper, spreadsheet and bookkeeping systems. It was an ambitious project primarily due to the number of parishes and users and offering a good user experience was crucial in getting all the parishes digital and consistent in their processes.

The key requirements identified from the strategic review were:

• A highly secure cloud system with inclusive disaster recovery, upgrades and support in one service [SaaS]
• A finance system that is clear for Diocesan and Parish users to set up and easily adopt across the Diocese
• Consolidation of all 197 Parishes into a single reporting charity number was key which also facilitates a simplified internal and external auditing process
• Integration with a custom pastoral management system using API integration
• Extensive budgeting and reporting by department, fund, parish and project through a Business Intelligence layer [BI Layer]
• Systems integration capability to facilitate invoice capture, expense management, banking and approval workflow.

Following the strategic review and tendering process, the Archdiocese appointed AccountsIQ, partnered with Enclude, a non-profit technology consultancy firm, to implement a digital system to integrate pastoral management with accounting and provide consistent, consolidated reporting. 

Collaborative and personalised implementation

One of the challenges was the scale of the project. This meant the team getting to know all the people involved and creating a community-based approach to the project given the number of stakeholders involved. Ide Finnegan, Head of Finance and project director for the Archdiocese of Dublin explains:

Implementing AccountsIQ across all our parishes was a very significant project for the Archdiocese. There were challenges along the way, but we received great support from AccountsIQ throughout the process. It particularly helped that the implementation manager was also an accountant who understood what we were trying to do. This made the process much smoother.”

An integrated Salesforce solution

A seamless interface with the Archdiocese’s pastoral management system built in Salesforce was provided along with a custom cash collection form, built and deployed to allow parishes to easily lodge collections automatically into AccountsIQ with built in coding in accordance with SORP.  This allows a central view to manage funds for the assets of the various registered charities and the trustees to whom they report.  Essentially a simple capture method for the user, allowing complex reporting to be made more efficient.

Simplified consolidation across numerous entities

The Archdiocese required a consolidated financial reporting software across its 197 parishes and trusts. With numerous entities and a high volume of transactions, the consolidation requirements were complex. AccountsIQ’s simple to use, but sophisticated consolidation engine, enabled the Archdiocese to simplify the process by automating much of the consolidation and reducing manual inputs. It also simplified reporting for auditors through consolidated debtor and creditor reports. The Archdiocese is now looking to implement AccountsIQ’s automated accounts payable using OCR technology, the expense capture app and fixed asset register modules to further consolidate their processes.

Meeting the needs of multiple users

The Archdiocese of Dublin has 197 parishes and trusts each with its own Parish Finance Committee and unique user requirements. AccountsIQ understood the requirement for a flexible system that could meet the needs of a wide and varied range of users. AccountsIQ’s user-friendly features facilitated user adoption amongst parishes, particularly amongst users with less experience of Cloud accounting software. In this way, AccountsIQ offers a clear user experience at the front end, while enabling complex accounting solutions on the back end.

We realised early on that we had to offer an accounting solution to parishes that was more than a compliance exercise. With AccountsIQ we could offer them something more, an easy to use template for accounting that cut back on paperwork and saved time on manual processes. This efficiency has positively impacted uptake within parishes,” explains Ide.

A Cloud-led paperless approach to accounting

Cloud technology was a major factor for the Archdiocese in choosing AccountsIQ and Enclude. Previously they had used an on-site system (installed on PCs) which was impractical to roll out to each parish. The finance team recognised that the Cloud would dramatically simplify implementation and provide ongoing benefits for reporting and auditing.

AccountsIQ and Salesforce integrate seamlessly in the Cloud and use secure API technology to transfer data between both systems. This naturally provides an audit trail for donations and the ability to automate direct debit calls, auto-reconcile banks and prepare tax refunds for donations above €250 per annum from generous donors. The bespoke consolidated reports are all accessible through pinned electronic documents, thus cutting back on tedious paperwork.  This automated and paperless process also makes life much more efficient for the charity’s auditors.

The Future

AccountsIQ’s ongoing development and commitment to R&D means that the system is constantly evolving making it an accounting solution for the future. The Archdiocese anticipates that it will explore more opportunities to benefit from AccountIQ’s evolving suite of tools, particularly the expense module, accounts payable capture and approval, fixed asset register and open banking.

Ide explains:

One of the good aspects of AccountsIQ is that it’s constantly improving. The system we started with on day one has evolved significantly. AccountsIQ has delivered the best possible solution to the Diocese and Parishes and continues to release new features and functionality that make our systems efficient and compliant.”