Walking With The Wounded
Automation to simplify workflows and reduce data entry
Drastically simpler month-end, saving at least 15 days a month
Real-time financial reporting to drive better-informed decisions
The challenge
The finance team at Walking With The Wounded did a huge amount of manual data entry. Month-end took “literally all month”, which meant management reports were out of date as soon as they were produced.
With the charity laying ambitious growth plans, that system couldn’t last.
Marc Brady, Head of Finance, says: “We turn over around £5m a year, which makes us technically a large charity, but among military charities we’re relatively small and our five-year target is to double the number of veterans we support, aiming for around 5,000 by 2030.
“To do that, we needed to professionalise some of our operations, including finance – and since I joined last year, an upgrade of the finance system has been my main objective.
“Even if we hadn’t been growing, we would have needed to upgrade the finance system,” Marc adds.
“Sage 50 is really for small limited companies and sole traders. When we spoke to Sage, people there couldn’t believe we were still using Sage 50 for a charity of our size.”
“Sage 50 is really for small limited companies and sole traders. When we spoke to Sage, people there couldn’t believe we were still using Sage 50 for a charity of our size.” Marc Brady, Head of Finance
The solution
A new system would have to be cloud-based, so the charity was no longer paying for a server and responsible for looking after it. It must enable real-time reporting and eliminate a lot of manual work.
“We wanted something that could automate all our key workflows. With Sage 50, all the workflows were done manually and involved emailing people for authorisations,” says Marc. “That created an immense lag in the system.”
He adds: “We also wanted something that was tailored for charities, rather than charities being an afterthought. We knew the big names, so we went to Sage and Oracle and came up with a few more by Googling. But then an organisation that was working with our finance team mentioned iplicit.
“We sat through many hours of presentations from vendors and we could see straight away that some couldn’t handle what we were trying to do. The three that could, to varying extents, were Sage Intacct, Oracle and iplicit. We had more in-depth meetings and demonstrations and it became clear that iplicit was best set up for charities.
“The fact that iplicit lets you have as many attributes, or dimensions, as you want, so you can tag the data and slice it in any way you like, was the most powerful thing about it for me,” he says.
“It wasn’t the cheapest of the three but it was the clear winner.”
“We sat through many vendor presentations and could see straight away that some couldn’t handle what we were trying to do. We had more in-depth meetings and demonstrations and it became clear that iplicit was best set up for charities." Marc Brady, Head of Finance
'I enjoyed the implementation'
Marc had never implemented a finance system before and admits he was “dreading it a little bit”.
“I know people who’ve done it in the past and who said it was a nightmare,” he says. “But actually I really enjoyed the process and from my perspective, it was really straightforward.
“We had a very good project manager in Georgios Slikas, Partner Success Consultant – and Functional Consultant Anish Patel, our day-to-day support through the process, was fantastic. From understanding our requirements, building the system through to the training and user acceptance testing, it was pretty seamless.
“Since we were handed over to the customer success team, I’ve only had to raise a couple of support tickets for minor things and those have been responded to very quickly.”
“The fact iplicit lets you have as many attributes, or dimensions, as you want, so you can tag the data and slice it in any way you like, was the most powerful thing about it for me.” Marc Brady, Head of Finance
'iplicit saved us at least 15 days each month'
The time savings from adopting iplicit have been enormous.
“Just before we were due to install iplicit, we lost a member of staff, so we decided not to replace them until we saw how we were getting on with the new system,” says Marc.
“As it turned out, we’ve been able to do with three people what we used to do with four.”
A lot of the time savings have been on data entry tasks. “We have a lot of invoices so manually keying them in was a huge time drain,” says Marc.
Now, invoices are scanned by iplicit’s AP automation tool and are ready for approval within 30-60 seconds, doing away with the need to email them for approval. “It’s gone from a week to get something into the system to minutes,” says Marc.
Placing an order could take days under the old, email-based purchase system. Now, staff can raise their own purchase orders, ready for approval. When an invoice comes in, it’s matched automatically with the approved PO.
“Bank reconciliations were one of the main reasons month-end took so long,” adds Marc. “It would take a few days before you could get on with the other work. Now, with automated bank feeds, we can do a reconciliation every day, so it’s done in chunks rather than one nightmarish period at month-end.”
I really enjoyed the implementation process and from my perspective, it was really straightforward. Since we were handed over to the customer success team, I’ve only had to raise a couple of support tickets for minor things and those have been responded to very quickly.” Marc Brady, Head of Finance
There used to be a lot of time spent in spreadsheets. “Month-end involved exporting all the data from Sage 50 and having about 88 columns of lookups, then pivot tables, and manipulating all the data,” says Marc.
“It literally took all month – so all the information we reported to management was already a month out of date and therefore pretty useless.
“By the second time we did month-end with iplicit, we got it done on working day number six – and that was with one person on sick leave. With a full contingent, we’re looking at four or five working days.
“iplicit has saved us at least 15 days each month.”
No longer running 'almost blind'
Alongside those time savings, the move to iplicit has drastically improved the quality of the data available.
Previously, tailoring reports for different audiences required laborious work – and sometimes the team had to tell people something couldn’t be done.
“There wasn’t the information coming out of the system that would allow budget holders and management to make well-informed decisions,” says Marc.
“We were operating almost blind – just looking at the cash balance and sensing what was OK.
“When our chief executive landed about two years, ago, one of his big aims was to sort out the finance side of the operation and especially the finance information side.
“Now, we can pretty much run off a view of the data in any way people ask for. It’s massively improved our reporting.”
“iplicit has saved us at least 15 days each month.” Marc Brady, Head of Finance
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