Any organisation reliant upon public sector funding has a culture of accountability and visibility at its heart. With 95% of its funding coming from Welsh Assembly Government, National Museums of Wales (NMW) is using the PS Financials business accounting system to improve the visibility of 'real-time' budgetary information and aid control over departmental spending across its multiple museums throughout Wales.
The web portal, which supports both English and Welsh language versions, provides a platform for new efficiency, with streamlined processes and 'real-time' management information improving local control over key finance processes, from supplier ordering to expense management and invoice creation.
National Museum of Wales
Established by Royal Charter in 1907 as the National Museum of Wales, NMW receives its core funding through grant-in-aid from the Welsh Assembly Government as an Assembly Sponsored Public Body. The Museum, a registered charity, aims to promote a wide understanding of Wales' heritage, culture and role in world development and history. NMW is currently undergoing a Visioning process, to ensure its relevance to all sectors of society.
The National Museums of Wales currently operates six sites across Wales, Big Pit; National Mining Museum of Wales, Blaenafon, National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff, Museum of Welsh Life, St Fagans, Roman Legionary Museum, Caerleon, National Woollen Museum, Dre-fach Felindre and the Welsh Slate Museum, Llanberis. Opening later this year is the National Waterfront Museum at Swansea, outlining the story of industry and innovation in Wales.
As a national museum, NMW does not charge admission and is highly dependent upon the public sector for funding. Indeed, although raising revenue through its shops, cafes and regular exhibitions, some 95% of annual funding comes direct from the National Assembly for Wales
Mark Rainey, NMW's head of finance, said, "As a charity NMGW also attains funding from a number of other sources including the Heritage Lottery Fund which enables us to purchase collections and helps with major capital expenditure, such as the development of the National Waterfront Museum at Swansea."
With an annual expenditure in excess of £25 million, NMW has a clear requirement for improved local visibility of financial information across its multiple sites.
"Excellent budgetary control is a fundamental requirement for any charity or public body. NMW requires both excellent real-time visibility and the ability to impose purchasing constraints to ensure budgets are not exceeded," added Mr Rainey.
Broad Support
Hence, when NMW discovered that both its existing 'mainframe' financial application and underlying database were no longer to be supported, the organisation decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ascertain whether a new system could deliver improved local management information and financial control.
"The cost associated with upgrading to a new version of our existing software was such that NMW had no choice but to undertake a formal tender process. We used that opportunity to evaluate new technology and how it could best support the organisation, not only within the finance team but across 120 non finance users. PS Financials' ability to provide excellent 'Self Service' facilities to these non-financial users was very important." said Mr Rainey.
In the past, these users, who are located across the organisation's multiple sites, have been constrained by the unfriendliness of the finance system. Combined with reliance upon monthly paper based management reports, this created a culture of local Excel spreadsheets to provide up to date budgeting.
After their experience of dealing with a large supplier of 'mainframe' financial accounting software, NMW believed that dealing with a smaller organisation would ensure a positive and timely reaction to their issues. Rainey confirms, "PS Financials are a smaller organisation that is highly responsive. They have professional staff and they have the resources to provide a quality product and services, on budget - on time."
In addition, PS Financials has provided Welsh language support, enabling Welsh speakers at NMW to use the system in their first language. "It is important to offer this choice to our users," says Rainey. "the delivery of a Welsh language version of the web portal is a real benefit and helps to promote and support the Welsh language and the welfare of Welsh speakers and contribute to the Assembly Government's vision of a fully bilingual Wales."
Process Improvement
Non finance users across thirty five departments can now enter, authorise and receipt orders as well as access management information via the web portal. Using Sentinel software to send email alerts to managers has streamlined the authorisation process, significantly reducing administrative time and overhead and providing greater visibility over the ordering process. Critically the real time information provided by PS Financials is enabling NMW to impose improved management of budgetary spend - a key issue, especially at year end.
"Management information is now available at any time during the month and budget holders have a complete, up to date view of their commitment to date," explains Mr Rainey.
This has replaced the duplication to spreadsheets previously used, removing both inaccuracies and confusion that demanded monthly reconciliation with management reports.
NMW is also using alerts to highlight budget overspend. Clicking on the budget check button when an order is raised highlights any potential lack of funds and reduces the dangers of over spend.
"NMW is already attaining tighter financial control across departments," says Mr Rainey. "As a public body the organisation cannot afford to overspend and, in the past, the finance department has spent a lot of time towards year end ensuring departments keep within budget. Using PS Financials to automate this process will increase NMW's financial control and release time within the finance department to concentrate on delivering additional insight across the organisation."
Performance Management
Indeed the finance team is leveraging PS Financials' unified ledger to improve information visibility across NMW. "PS Financials is a real, real-time system," he insists. " The integration and real-time update of ledgers into a single database - the unified ledger - ensures information is always up to date, reflecting postings made into the system immediately."
The unified ledger is also providing greater visibility across the museum's multiple activities, including its local sites and retail operations. In the past, NMW required a third party business intelligence tool to create corporate management reports for the Directorate. "Using PS Financials all the information is on the trial balance. Using the inherent drill down and analysis capabilities, performance and financial position can be easily assessed at any level of the organisation," says Rainey.
Looking ahead to year end, the museum is planning to exploit PS Financials in built Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) statutory reporting to significantly reduce the time and resources required to meet this annual regulatory requirement. "In the past NMW has relied on spreadsheets to manage SORP reports. Using the hierarchies within PS Financials the same information feeds both management reports and financial reports, which will significantly reduce the time spent producing this information," he confirms.
The organisation is also using PS Financials' project based accounting to support ad hoc events such as the many special exhibitions staged annually.
According to Mr Rainey, "These activities tend to cut across departments and using the project ledger to code against departments NMW can attain accurate project costs and pull together key management information on the success of each event financially."
Web Portal
Looking ahead, NMW plans to further extend its use of the web portal, most notably providing access to additional staff to claim expenses or raise requisitions. In addition, the organisation plans to enable local departments to raise sales invoices on the system to further streamline processes.
And throughout the development of any enhancements, the organisation will continue to upgrade its core PS Financials solution.
"PS Financials has a strong philosophy to encourage customers to upgrade every six months - without incurring costs - to ensure everyone is working on the latest version of the technology. Having been in the position of relying on a version of a system that was desupported , that strategy is extremely important to NMW," added Mr Rainey.
He concludes, "With the museum's reliance upon public sector funding excellent financial control is a fundamental requirement. Using PS Financials has not only provided the real time budgetary information required to improve financial control but also provided a platform for efficiency improvements." | 
