The Womens' Royal Voluntary Service Implements PS Financials

Registered charity uses accounting and business management system to improve reporting, budgeting and funds analysis on projects

WRVS, one of the UK's largest charity and voluntary organisations, with a significant retail operation, has invested in new accounting and business management software from PS Financials.

The PS Financials system will enable the charity to improve the availability of reporting information across all levels within the organisation. This will support better cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting for all projects being worked on, such as hospital trading, community transport, meals on wheels and books on wheels services.

WRVS is well known as a national charity. However, it is also a very significant retailer with more than 580 shops and cafes, which are operated by volunteers in hospitals throughout the UK. The PS Financials system will also offer full integration with its EPOS systems, which are being trialled.

Gordon Welsby, Director of Finance at WRVS, says, "As a registered charity we have very stringent reporting requirements and need to be aware of all our income and expenditure on a project-by-project basis. The implementation of PS Financials will enable us to significantly improve reporting processes in order to provide managers with highly accurate, management information, which delivers a true picture of our financial position on our projects."

He continues, "PS Financials is a flexible accounting system which allows us to automate some of our core financial processes in order to reduce manual transaction

processing within the organisation. Our staff can now be more focused on interrogating

and analysing financial information rather than having to spend all their time having to manually input data into the system."

The User Defined Input (UDI) screens within PS Financials are a key feature of the system for WRVS. This enables the charity to customise the interface of the system to match the format of invoices received from major customers, which speeds up data entry. WRVS can also automatically enforce posting rules according to the level of experience or responsibility of individual members of staff.

Welsby says, "The flexibility of the PS Financials system means it can handle the different requirements and activities of an organisation that is both a charity and a retailer."

A number of other charity organisations have already implemented PS Financials which means that the PS Financials consultants have good experience of the issues currently facing the charity sector. PS Financials is committed to the voluntary and charity sectors in more than just lip-service. It is working with the Charity Finance Directors' Group to establish best practice for accounting for the value of volunteers.

WRVS is one of the UK's largest voluntary organisations. It is committed to helping build socially inclusive communities throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It has over 95,000 volunteers, including 13,000 men, who give their time to help others.