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.”

AccountsIQ provides Humentum with a simple solution to complex accounting needs

Humentum, a leading global nonprofit working with humanitarian and development organisations worldwide, has multiple income and funding streams.

“But what I love about AccountsIQ is the simplicity,” says Jocelyn Boughton, Humentum’s Global Director, Finance & Administration. “It’s no more complicated than it needs to be.”

Humentum was formed from a merger of three partners in 2017. They all shared a mission to inspire and achieve operational excellence for organisations focused on positive societal impact. As such, Humentum now delivers training, consultancy, membership, and advocacy for NGOs worldwide.

The three organisations (in the US and UK) were using different versions of QuickBooks when they merged.

“Our main pain-points revolved around reporting and consolidating across GBP and USD,” explains Jocelyn. “We also identified inefficiencies in our manual processes. For example, we had to follow about nine steps when downloading batched invoice transactions from Salesforce to QuickBooks.”

Month-end results are much quicker with AccountsIQ

Looking to solve these issues, Humentum instigated an RFP process between four alternative finance systems: Sage Intacct, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and AccountsIQ.

“AccountsIQ ticked all our boxes,” says Jocelyn. “The others ruled themselves out. Sage Intacct was US-based, with no VAT capabilities. With NetSuite, the implementation would be long and complex. Microsoft Dynamics came in at a high price point.”

“AccountsIQ does everything we need and it’s an ideal fit for us as the next step up from QuickBooks. With QuickBooks, month-end could almost take the whole month! Now, we do it within five working days. Getting the results out quickly makes a big difference.”

Integrations were an important part of the decision

Humentum needed a finance system that would integrate seamlessly with their other software.

They’ve integrated AccountsIQ with Salesforce, Arlo, Stripe and iCompleat. With Arlo, clients can register for Humentum’s training courses and pay by credit card or request an invoice to pay by bank transfer. The AccountsIQ/Stripe integration means clients can also choose to pay invoices by credit card (a common practice in the US).

The integration between AccountsIQ and iCompleat works well for purchase invoicing. Suppliers send PDF invoices and iCompleat reads and codes the details automatically. All that Humentum’s finance team needs to do is check it and send for approval. The approved invoices are then automatically posted into AccountsIQ.

“It’s much better than manually sending invoices around the company. In fact, the ability to do all these integrations is one of the things I love about AccountsIQ.”

Multi-dimensional reporting gives clear insights

With AccountsIQ’s multi-dimensional reporting structure, Humentum can report on their four main income streams quickly and easily. They can also drill down into the detail. As Jocelyn explains:

“In just two-minutes, I can get reports showing me what’s happening across our different service areas and locations.”

“We now have a clear understanding of exactly what consultancy, training, support, and membership services we’re providing to which organisations and countries. This wasn’t possible with QuickBooks; it would have involved lots of manual work, manipulating transactions and bringing it all together in Excel.”

The system was quick to set up and is intuitive to use

AccountsIQ’s onboarding team ensured the system was ready for Humentum’s new financial year. “In fact,” says Jocelyn, “it took less than eight weeks to implement AccountsIQ and for our finance team of four users to be up and running on the new system.” Humentum’s Client Engagement Managers are lighter users, but they use AccountsIQ to run GL transaction reports to track their expenses and the time spent on their projects.

“AccountsIQ is intuitive to use. That’s important because mistakes are much less likely to happen when all users can post things quickly and easily.”

Learn more

Find out more about how you can save time and streamline your finance processes with AccountsIQ’s charity accounting software. Learn more about how our software partners can help deliver additional efficiencies with our Integrated Accounting Software.

Innovative approach to multi-dimensional reporting killer AccountsIQ feature for Arts charity, Artichoke Trust

Artichoke Trust is a charitable organisation which works with artists to create large-scale public art events across the UK. Artichoke’s ambitious outdoor art projects include the Lumiere light festivals and Antony Gormley’s One & Other Fourth Plinth commission. As a charity managing multiple projects at once, each with varying budgets and funding sources, Artichoke Trust has unique accounting requirements when it comes to project accounting which need to be SORP compliant. In particular, it requires a granular level of detail to ensure accurate recording of core project costs as well as the ability to record project costs against phases.

Neil Goulder, Director of Finance & Operations at Artichoke Trust, had been using Sage Financials as his accounting tool but admits it had a “number of serious shortcomings”. When he learned of Sage’s plan to withdraw the product, it was an opportunity to look around for alternatives which might better fit his particular requirements in Project Accounting and provide the structure he needs for SORP compliance. Neil says,

I started to look for a good Cloud-based replacement that is strong on dimensional reporting and analysis codes. Among a dozen candidates was AccountsIQ. I took a peek at a demo system and really liked it. Great, scalable product, with an innovative approach to multi-dimensional coding.

‘Conditional’ dimensions for accurate posting

Strong dimensional analysis is key for Neil. AccountsIQ allows for up to six customisable dimensions linked to a unique BI code, plus an infinite number of codes that can be assigned to each dimension. Reporting is possible across all dimensions and codes. AccountsIQ’s key strength is that only valid permutations of Analysis Codes can be used when data is input, which significantly reduces the risk of human error when it comes to tracking costs. Neil explains,

Dimensions are really important to us. We looked at Sage 50, but that only had two dimensions. We needed at least four, covering cost centres; projects; project phases; and individual light installations. There are some very expensive systems which can do it but there aren’t many affordable systems which offer this level of flexibility. That was an absolute ‘must’ from our point of view. AccountsIQ is the only product I’ve seen that allows you to create these ‘conditional’ dimensions.

Greater efficiency through automation and streamlined workflow

AccountsIQ features an automated bank reconciliation functionality that has helped Neil speed up the period end reconciliation process.

I really like the way the Bank Rec module works. The system with Sage Financials was so overcomplicated we never used it and worked in spreadsheets instead. AccountsIQ is very straightforward. I like the way it recognises past transactions and fills in as much of the information as it can, which really speeds up the process.

Neil is able to upload paperwork against transactions which makes it much easier to provide information to auditors and also facilitate a mostly paperless environment. Ultimately, AccountsIQ enables Neil to keep all of his data in one place, largely automated, without the need for other spreadsheets or manual processes.

With smart use of the dimensions coding structure, I can get every piece of information needed into AccountsIQ so that I don’t have to maintain control accounts manually in Excel. It saves us a huge amount of time.

Ease of access to data for SORP reporting

AccountsIQ’s Excel Add-in offers further efficiencies for Neil, allowing him to use a real-time data link from AccountsIQ to create tables in Excel which are fed into the SORP compliant statutory accounts prepared in Word. This means updates are refreshed instantly as changes are made to Statutory accounts.

AccountsIQ is brilliant at accommodating the structure needed for the SORP. We pull the information into our format live from AccountsIQ through Excel. It’s an incredibly quick and efficient process.

Lightning-fast implementation

Having initially set an ambitious release target of two weeks, Neil was able to implement AccountsIQ at Artichoke Trust in a record-breaking two days. This was in large part due to Neil’s own tenacity in getting to grips with the BI codes and how they could best be mapped to his needs. AccountsIQ’s development team gave Neil access to a test system so he could model the BI codes before going live. He had also exported and cleaned the static data from his old accounting system such as customer information, bank account details, and the nominal ledger structure. This level of preparation allowed Neil to go live with AccountsIQ so quickly. He says,

I hoped we might break all records and implement it in a fortnight as our new accounting year started on the First of April. I signed a contract Wednesday morning and we went live at 4:30 the next day.

Summing up his experience

The elements that have really made a difference are AccountsIQ’s innovative implementation of analysis codes, the attaching of invoices, and the bank reconciliation module. These are things I didn’t have before, and they work beautifully. These features have made the biggest difference to the way I work, giving me the information I need. Of all of these, BI codes are the absolute killer feature that puts AccountsIQ head and shoulders above the competition.