The European Union's largest HIV/AIDS-focused development organisation, has invested in new accounting and business management software from PS Financials, which will give the organisation greater visibility of its financial activities.
The PS Financials system, which replaces SunSystems, will enable the charity to improve reporting, budgeting and funds analysis on projects, and to provide greater transparency of information to donors, encouraging confidence in the way that funds are being allocated within the charity.
Graham McDonald, Senior Accountant at The International HIV/AIDS Alliance, says, "Large charities such as ourselves have very stringent statutory reporting requirements and therefore we need to be able to analyse all of our transactions in great detail. With PS Financials we are able to significantly improve our reporting and financial management across the organisation, and using the software's drill-down facility we can provide greater visibility to donors and other stakeholders of how money is being spent."
He continues, ""Another key feature of PS Financials is that it has broad multi-currency functionality.", which was essential to us as we operate in lots of different countries using many different currencies. We report to our donors in US dollars yet we make donations to international communities around the world, so we needed to be able to handle multi-currency payments very easily."
The User Defined Input (UDI) screens and web based interface within PS Financials also provide major benefits to The International HIV/AIDS Alliance. This will enable the charity's overseas offices to access local financial information and action payment queries without having to contact the UK finance office. Overseas staff will also be able to input financial information into the PS Financials system, providing time savings and cost efficiencies across the organisation.
In the future The International HIV/AIDS Alliance is looking to take advantage of the email-based alerts within PS Financials to implement a fully integrated Email Notification of Payment system. This will automatically send an email as notification that a donation or payment has been made by the organisation.
Commenting on the working relationship with PS Financials, McDonald says, "When choosing a system supplier it's an issue of trust. You assess the people you are dealing with and PS Financials came across as genuine, reliable people to work with and their technical ability was light years ahead of anyone else we spoke to. Throughout the implementation process we received excellent support from PS Financials and this has continued since we went live with the system."
The work of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance focuses on mobilising and strengthening communities so that they can respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic themselves. They believe that those at the forefront of the response to HIV/AIDS need to have the resources to take on the challenges that the epidemic presents. | 
