When the Institute of Physics looked for a replacement financial system able to manage the particular requirements of a charitable organisation with trading subsidiaries PS Financials' modern, user-friendly solution proved the perfect option.
Founded in 1874 as the Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (IOP) is a scientific membership organisation devoted to increasing the understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 34,000 and aims to communicate with a range of audiences from specialists through government to the general public.
The Institute has charitable status and receives income from membership subscriptions and two subsidiary companies - the Institute of Physics Publishing, and Institute of Physics Enterprises, which organises events and conferences. A not-for-profit publisher, IOP Publishing is a world leader in scientific publishing and made an operating profit of £7.7m in 2005, contributing more than 70% of the Institute's funding. IOP Enterprises had a turnover of £1.3m during the same year. The Institute employs 90 staff, with 8 working in the finance department, which manages the entire group's financial activity.
Existing Accounting Software wasn't easy to use
Financial Director Sean Fox joined the organisation in 2004 and recalls there was a general dissatisfaction with Microsoft Great Plains, the accounting software the Institute was using:
"Although Great Plains had good functionality, we didn't find it that easy to use. You had to go through a lot of menus to get to anything, and, more problematically, the system had a complicated project management system which wasn't very suitable for our needs."
When they were informed that the version of Microsoft Great Plains they were using would no longer be supported, the Institute began to look at alternative options. Although upgrading to a newer version of Great Plains was considered, it wasn't seen as a practical option:
"We didn't believe there was a solution that would work for us", notes Sean.
A short list of financial software was drawn up for evaluation
Sean did some initial research into alternative software systems before engaging a firm of external consultants to help source a suitable replacement. One of the Institute's key requirements for the new system was a more straightforward project management option, which would be able to manage the particular requirements of a charitable organisation with trading subsidiaries.
"We needed a system which would allow us to do partial VAT calculations and could handle the finances of charities in particular", says Sean.
Sean recalls:
"Having set out our requirements, the consultant came back with a shortlist of four systems - PS Financials, Exchequer, Access Accounts and Agresso - the latter partly because it was already used by our publishing arm. "I had heard about PS Financials at the Softworld show before then, I went to one of their seminars and it looked interesting."
PS Financials was chosen as the most suitable system
"The PS Financials system was recommended ahead of the other packages short listed for a number of reasons: it offered good functionality and was relatively new, so built in a more modern way - it had benefits for the future in being able to link up with other systems. It was also one of the affordable options, but was at least as good as the more expensive packages."
PS Financials provides support for all Not for Profit associated reporting and legislative requirements, including sofa, SORP and the management of Restricted or Unrestricted funds.
Installation took place over six months, with year end marking the changeover from the old system to PS Financials. This was achieved with no major problems, thanks to the close working relationship between PS Financials and the Institute:
"Our Management Accountant became the Project Manager for the implementation process", recalls Sean.
"At the beginning, the consultants from PS Financials worked with us to come up with a timetable for the process. We wanted it finished by year end and that was exactly what happened."
The installation of PS Financials allows more focus in the Finance Department and specialised access for other managers and staff
All the standard financial ledgers were installed at the beginning of the process and six months later the fixed assets functionality was used
The Institute now has 8 finance team users of PS Financials, and a further 25 read-only licences which give managers and staff in all departments access to financial information relating to their own cost centres. This has greatly reduced the number of queries to the finance department, for example, managers can now check for themselves when a supplier is going to be paid.
The Institute are currently implementing PS Purchase Order Processing which will give them all the functionality they need at present.
"We are in the process of setting up the purchase order processing module which we hope will lead to more effective month end closing, enabling us to pick up accruals more effectively", says Sean.
Future plans for the system also include moving the payment of expenses to a web-based process - at present, members submit their expenses for branch activities on paper.
Plans for the future will mean additional time and cost savings
The Institute's Financial staff have already seen significant time savings in the time taken to input invoices, as the PS Financials system contains financial records for both the Institute and its venue trading subsidiary.
"We have a number of invoices which have to be split between the two companies, this can be done directly with PS Financials and saves us a day a week which was previously spent manually inputting invoices into the Great Plains system", notes Sean.
An additional time saving is being generated by adding data on fixed assets directly to the new system rather than into Excel.
As PS Financials allows for easy integration with membership and fundraising systems, the Institute has been able to align it easily with its booking system Rendezvous, and also bring across data on monthly membership income from its membership database. Longer term, it is working to harmonise its IT platforms with those of the publishing subsidiary, IOPP, which will allow data to be passed between PS Financials and the IOPP finance system.
Sean also observes that the IOP's relationship with PS Financials didn't simply end once the software was in place - the Institute's finance staff have regular opportunities to pick up tips and advice from others:
"A couple of our users have been to the PS Financials user conference, it's been useful for them to see how other people are doing things. At these events, our users are actually talking to the developers as well as other customers, so it's a great opportunity to influence future development of the software."
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