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Overcome the NFP sector’s unique challenges and streamline the way your accounting team, fundraisers and volunteers work. AccountsIQ allows you to achieve transparency, consistency and SORP compliance with slick, digital processes and low cost of ownership.
Gain full transparency with detailed expenses tracking, linked to funds and easily segregate income streams. Work with our platform experts to create your unique, multi-dimensional coding framework and set up the exact reporting you need.
Swap costly upgrades, expensive hardware and heavy implementation costs for one single affordable monthly subscription. Built in the cloud, AccountsIQ integrates seamlessly with other apps, allowing you to streamline processes, reduce errors and save time.
Transform the way you work with AccountsIQ’s automated processes. Spend more time on strategic work and less on repetitive administrative tasks. Go digital with approvals, expenses, bank feeds, reconciliation, document storage, FX, consolidation and more.
This multi-dimensional reporting is perfect for our setting. It has revolutionised our potential to do our job here in the centre. That is to stand over these charitable funds and know exactly what’s going on with the funds of each charity.
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The Archdiocese of Dublin is the largest Diocese in Ireland, with 197 parishes and funds under management that require reporting under new charity SORP regulations. The Archdiocese required an accounting solution that would meet their complex reporting needs whilst also providing a user-friendly system that parishes could easily adopt.
The Archdiocese of Dublin is the largest Diocese in Ireland, with 197 parishes and funds under management that require reporting under new charity SORP regulations. The Archdiocese required an accounting solution that would meet their complex reporting needs whilst also providing a user-friendly system that parishes could easily adopt. This allowed a step-change away from paper, spreadsheet and bookkeeping systems. It was an ambitious project primarily due to the number of parishes and users and offering a good user experience was crucial in getting all the parishes digital and consistent in their processes.
The key requirements identified from the strategic review were:
Following the strategic review and tendering process, the Archdiocese appointed AccountsIQ, partnered with Enclude, a non-profit technology consultancy firm, to implement a digital system to integrate pastoral management with accounting and provide consistent, consolidated reporting.
One of the challenges was the scale of the project. This meant the team getting to know all the people involved and creating a community-based approach to the project given the number of stakeholders involved. Ide Finnegan, Head of Finance and project director for the Archdiocese of Dublin explains:
Implementing AccountsIQ across all our parishes was a very significant project for the Archdiocese. There were challenges along the way, but we received great support from AccountsIQ throughout the process. It particularly helped that the implementation manager was also an accountant who understood what we were trying to do. This made the process much smoother.”
A seamless interface with the Archdiocese’s pastoral management system built in Salesforce was provided along with a custom cash collection form, built and deployed to allow parishes to easily lodge collections automatically into AccountsIQ with built in coding in accordance with SORP. This allows a central view to manage funds for the assets of the various registered charities and the trustees to whom they report. Essentially a simple capture method for the user, allowing complex reporting to be made more efficient.
The Archdiocese required a consolidated financial reporting software across its 197 parishes and trusts. With numerous entities and a high volume of transactions, the consolidation requirements were complex. AccountsIQ’s simple to use, but sophisticated consolidation engine, enabled the Archdiocese to simplify the process by automating much of the consolidation and reducing manual inputs. It also simplified reporting for auditors through consolidated debtor and creditor reports. The Archdiocese is now looking to implement AccountsIQ’s automated accounts payable using OCR technology, the expense capture app and fixed asset register modules to further consolidate their processes.
The Archdiocese of Dublin has 197 parishes and trusts each with its own Parish Finance Committee and unique user requirements. AccountsIQ understood the requirement for a flexible system that could meet the needs of a wide and varied range of users. AccountsIQ’s user-friendly features facilitated user adoption amongst parishes, particularly amongst users with less experience of Cloud accounting software. In this way, AccountsIQ offers a clear user experience at the front end, while enabling complex accounting solutions on the back end.
We realised early on that we had to offer an accounting solution to parishes that was more than a compliance exercise. With AccountsIQ we could offer them something more, an easy to use template for accounting that cut back on paperwork and saved time on manual processes. This efficiency has positively impacted uptake within parishes,” explains Ide.
Cloud technology was a major factor for the Archdiocese in choosing AccountsIQ and Enclude. Previously they had used an on-site system (installed on PCs) which was impractical to roll out to each parish. The finance team recognised that the Cloud would dramatically simplify implementation and provide ongoing benefits for reporting and auditing.
AccountsIQ and Salesforce integrate seamlessly in the Cloud and use secure API technology to transfer data between both systems. This naturally provides an audit trail for donations and the ability to automate direct debit calls, auto-reconcile banks and prepare tax refunds for donations above €250 per annum from generous donors. The bespoke consolidated reports are all accessible through pinned electronic documents, thus cutting back on tedious paperwork. This automated and paperless process also makes life much more efficient for the charity’s auditors.
AccountsIQ’s ongoing development and commitment to R&D means that the system is constantly evolving making it an accounting solution for the future. The Archdiocese anticipates that it will explore more opportunities to benefit from AccountIQ’s evolving suite of tools, particularly the expense module, accounts payable capture and approval, fixed asset register and open banking.
Ide explains:
One of the good aspects of AccountsIQ is that it’s constantly improving. The system we started with on day one has evolved significantly. AccountsIQ has delivered the best possible solution to the Diocese and Parishes and continues to release new features and functionality that make our systems efficient and compliant.”
Humentum, a leading global nonprofit, switched to AccountsIQ as it met their complex accounting and reporting needs and integrations with Salesforce, Stripe, iCompleat and Arlo joined up their data business-wide for increased efficiency and insights.
Humentum, a leading global nonprofit working with humanitarian and development organisations worldwide, has multiple income and funding streams.
“But what I love about AccountsIQ is the simplicity,” says Jocelyn Boughton, Humentum’s Global Director, Finance & Administration. “It’s no more complicated than it needs to be.”
Humentum was formed from a merger of three partners in 2017. They all shared a mission to inspire and achieve operational excellence for organisations focused on positive societal impact. As such, Humentum now delivers training, consultancy, membership, and advocacy for NGOs worldwide.
The three organisations (in the US and UK) were using different versions of QuickBooks when they merged.
“Our main pain-points revolved around reporting and consolidating across GBP and USD,” explains Jocelyn. “We also identified inefficiencies in our manual processes. For example, we had to follow about nine steps when downloading batched invoice transactions from Salesforce to QuickBooks.”
Looking to solve these issues, Humentum instigated an RFP process between four alternative finance systems: Sage Intacct, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics and AccountsIQ.
“AccountsIQ ticked all our boxes,” says Jocelyn. “The others ruled themselves out. Sage Intacct was US-based, with no VAT capabilities. With NetSuite, the implementation would be long and complex. Microsoft Dynamics came in at a high price point.”
“AccountsIQ does everything we need and it’s an ideal fit for us as the next step up from QuickBooks. With QuickBooks, month-end could almost take the whole month! Now, we do it within five working days. Getting the results out quickly makes a big difference.”
Humentum needed a finance system that would integrate seamlessly with their other software.
They’ve integrated AccountsIQ with Salesforce, Arlo, Stripe and iCompleat. With Arlo, clients can register for Humentum’s training courses and pay by credit card or request an invoice to pay by bank transfer. The AccountsIQ/Stripe integration means clients can also choose to pay invoices by credit card (a common practice in the US).
The integration between AccountsIQ and iCompleat works well for purchase invoicing. Suppliers send PDF invoices and iCompleat reads and codes the details automatically. All that Humentum’s finance team needs to do is check it and send for approval. The approved invoices are then automatically posted into AccountsIQ.
“It’s much better than manually sending invoices around the company. In fact, the ability to do all these integrations is one of the things I love about AccountsIQ.”
With AccountsIQ’s multi-dimensional reporting structure, Humentum can report on their four main income streams quickly and easily. They can also drill down into the detail. As Jocelyn explains:
“In just two-minutes, I can get reports showing me what’s happening across our different service areas and locations.”
“We now have a clear understanding of exactly what consultancy, training, support, and membership services we’re providing to which organisations and countries. This wasn’t possible with QuickBooks; it would have involved lots of manual work, manipulating transactions and bringing it all together in Excel.”
AccountsIQ’s onboarding team ensured the system was ready for Humentum’s new financial year. “In fact,” says Jocelyn, “it took less than eight weeks to implement AccountsIQ and for our finance team of four users to be up and running on the new system.” Humentum’s Client Engagement Managers are lighter users, but they use AccountsIQ to run GL transaction reports to track their expenses and the time spent on their projects.
“AccountsIQ is intuitive to use. That’s important because mistakes are much less likely to happen when all users can post things quickly and easily.”
Find out more about how you can save time and streamline your finance processes with AccountsIQ’s charity accounting software. Learn more about how our software partners can help deliver additional efficiencies with our Integrated Accounting Software.
AccountsIQ met Hampshire Cultural Trust's complex not-for-profit accounting needs with 23 locations and consolidation of 2 entities.
Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT) was formed when two Councils decentralised Hampshire’s museums and cultural centres. Previously posting its financial transactions to the Councils’ centralised SAP system, the newly-formed Trust needed to find an affordable solution which could handle its complex accounting needs across 23 locations, consolidate two legal entities and produce sector-compliant and meaningful reports from Head Office. With the help of advisors BDO, the Trust chose Cloud accounting and consolidation software AccountsIQ to handle accounting across the estate which comprises 23 museums and art centres.
HCT’s Director of Finance and Resources, Charlie Inigo-Jones, joined the Trust in 2016. Charlie says, “In 2015 the Trust needed to set up its own accounting system very quickly. Under my predecessor, we simply took AccountsIQ out of the box, imported the general ledger and cost centres from the Council’s system, and started to process its own transactions. That was it! We have since set up monthly accounts reconciliation and reporting processes, and are now beginning to explore the software’s full potential using multi-dimensional coding to meet our reporting needs.”
Working with AccountsIQ’s charity implementation team, Hampshire Cultural Trust’s project consists of two phases: designing and implementing the system infrastructure and reporting across their 23 locations and at Head Office; and completing a number of integration projects with ticketing, EPOS, payroll and other systems which will bring consistency and efficiencies across the group.
As well as 23 locations, the Trust has two separate legal entities, and a number of restricted or programme-based funds which need to be separately accounted for and reported. Each transaction needs to be posted to the correct location, entity, and fund.
AccountsIQ has enormous potential to produce Management Information Reports. In order for us to create those automated reporting packs and make dashboards meaningful, we have been working with AccountsIQ’s very flexible coding structure to ensure it is optimised for our purposes. The ability to define user access and create custom reports will allow us to cascade reporting throughout the Trust in a relevant way. Charlie Inigo-Jones
AccountsIQ is particularly suited to supporting a charity’s need to account for restricted funds. Charlie says, “AccountsIQ solves the accounting for restricted funds problem by using a third dimension of coding. The use of project codes make the information easy to grab. We could actually set up more layers of coding to extract sub-project information if we needed to.”
Many locations across the estate sell entry or event tickets and some incorporate retail outlets and cafes. HCT has installed two systems on a trial basis which will provide automated ticketing and Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS).
Charlie says, “Introducing ticketing and EPOS systems will help us implement codes at the point of sale, so the system captures what it is we have sold, what for, and the other information we require in order to provide meaningful retail management reporting. Integration with AccountsIQ will fully automate the process of posting sales from both retail sales systems, and help us to transform our financial and stock control processes. It will be a massive win when data from each venue can be reconciled to the tills, the bank and amounts received from card payments – all on a daily basis and with clearly defined reporting.”
