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Multi currency iconProjects in multiple currencies reported on easily in real time  

Time savings (1)Huge time savings when producing reports and MI 

Reporting-1Budget holders given live and accurate data 

Peace Direct logo

Peace Direct is a peace-building organisation that works in some of the most challenging conflict environments worldwide, including Afghanistan, DRC, Sudan, Mali, and Syria. 

It helps local people to stop violence by providing them with the support, skills, resources and voice needed to make peace a practical option

Sector
Non profit

Number of iplicit users 
10

Objectives
Eliminate time-consuming tasks and achieve flexible, real-time reporting 

Previous System 
Quickbooks

Website 
peacedirect.org

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The challenge

Running a fast-growing NGO on an entry-level finance system rapidly became unsustainable for Peace Direct. 

Staff spent much of their time working in spreadsheets, labouring over repetitive work that QuickBooks couldn’t automate.  

The search for more suitable software led the organisation to iplicit. Now, the finance system is producing better management information while saving large amounts of time – and tasks which used to take several days can be done in an instant. 

‘QuickBooks couldn’t keep up as we grew’ 

With its work desperately needed in conflict zones around the world, Peace Direct has been growing fast and becoming more complicated to run. 

“We’ve grown a lot in the past five years, from £500,000 to over £5m – and that meant we had to become very well organised,” says Valérie Bloomfield, Head of Finance and Operations. 

“Our finances are complex, with a lot of restricted funding, match funding and government and EU funding. We need to be accountable to all those donors, which means handling multiple currencies.” 

The organisation has legal entities in the UK and US and is in the process of setting up a third for the EU, based at the Hague.  

“As we started to grow, with multi-country programmes to report on, QuickBooks couldn’t keep up,” says Valérie. “Our team did a lot of work manually updating reports on all our projects in Excel.” 

“As we started to grow, with multi-country programmes to report on, QuickBooks couldn’t keep up.”

Valérie Bloomfield
Head of Finance and Operations, Peace Direct

The solution 

In iplicit, Peace Direct saw a system that could be tailored to its needs. 

“The difference between iplicit and some other systems, like Sage, was that we felt it was growing and could be implemented around our requirements, which are quite specialised,” says Valérie. “It’s a more powerful system than the ones we’d seen before and more flexible.” 

The aspects of iplicit that appealed to the team included its multi-currency features, its project reporting power, its unlimited number of accounting dimensions for analysis and its Excel integration. 

“The difference between iplicit and some other systems, like Sage, was that we felt it was growing and could be implemented around our requirements, which are quite specialised. It’s a more powerful system than the ones we’d seen before and more flexible.” 

Valérie Bloomfield
Head of Finance and Operations, Peace Direct

The process that took days but is now instant   

Adopting iplicit dramatically reduced the amount of work done in spreadsheets.  

“With QuickBooks, when we were reporting on our projects, we had to upload data from both the finance system and the payroll system, put it all together in a spreadsheet and link it manually,” says Valérie. 

“It used to take us at least a few days to copy and paste everything required for 10 different projects. Now with iplicit, the process is instant.” 

There were still more time savings when it came to handling multiple currencies.  

“Each of our partner projects will have several funders, donating in various currencies,” says Valérie. 

“The only way to handle that in QuickBooks was to create several versions of the same customer or supplier, one for each currency involved. If we were paying a partner in three different currencies, we had to create three different ‘customers’. Now, iplicit’s live currency feed makes things dramatically easier.” 

“With QuickBooks reporting, we had to upload data from both the finance system and the payroll system, put it all together in a spreadsheet and link it manually. It used to take us days to copy and paste everything required for 10 different projects. With iplicit, the process is instant.” 

Valérie Bloomfield
Head of Finance and Operations, Peace Direct

 ‘iplicit has made things a lot simpler’ 

When Peace Direct staff use spreadsheets now, those sheets are populated by live data from the finance system. 

“Thanks to the live link with Excel, any data you’ve exported into a spreadsheet stays current and correct. That’s an amazing feature,” says Valérie. 

iplicit's project reporting also means budget holders know how their initiatives are doing financially.  

“In the past, the programme team had to wait for us to update the system before they could know whether they had any money left in their projects. They’re very happy with the live feed,” says Valérie. 

“iplicit is very flexible and it offers unlimited accounting dimensions, so we can track things by fund, project and country.” 

Those same capabilities make the new system more useful to budget-holders. “People outside finance don’t necessarily understand accounting codes but when they look at their project, each line has a description rather than just a code, enabling them to understand where they are,” she adds. 

The ability to attach documents to records in iplicit has also been a time saver. “With QuickBooks, you could only upload one attachment to a transaction, which was the invoice, so people had to go somewhere else to see the authorisation and somewhere else again to see the contract. iplicit has made things a lot simpler – and audit will be a great deal easier,” says Valérie. 

“Thanks to the live link with Excel, any data you’ve exported into a spreadsheet stays current and correct. That’s an amazing feature.”

Valérie Bloomfield
Head of Finance and Operations, Peace Direct

‘I would definitely say it’s saved days’ 

Valérie and her team plan to make ever more use of iplicit’s capabilities.   

“One of the things that attracted us to iplicit is the approval workflows,” says Valérie. 

“Until now, people have been collecting physical receipts and logging their expenses in Excel. We plan imminently to switch to handling expenses in iplicit, so people can just take a photo of a receipt and attach it to a claim.” 

In the meantime, the team is still adding up the benefits of a system where information is correct in real time.   

“As soon as someone in finance posts something, that’s it – it’s done,” says Valérie. 

“I can look at the system during a break from a meeting and see the management accounts being updated as my colleagues do the posting. I used to have to amend everything manually myself. 

“That’s a big saving – I would definitely say days.” 

  • Ready to discover how iplicit could drastically improve productivity in your nonprofit? Find out more here. 

“iplicit has made things a lot simpler.” 

Valérie Bloomfield
Head of Finance and Operations, Peace Direct

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