AccountsIQ provides a flexible and easy to use accounting infrastructure that easily adapts to the needs of this rapidly growing business
When EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, part of the CHQ group, first opened in May 2016, its founder Neville Isdell had a vision to create a “local museum that could connect with people globally”. Since then, the museum’s innovative use of digital displays and interactive galleries has fostered year on year increases in visitors from both Ireland and overseas. In 2019, EPIC was voted Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards, further cementing the museum’s growth potential.
EPIC required a flexible accounting system that could easily evolve and adapt to the needs of a growing museum and EPIC’s Head of Finance, Aoife Smith, relies on AccountsIQ’s financial management software to provide this foundation for growth.
Efficiency through adaptability and integration
EPIC is part of the CHQ group, who use AccountsIQ for consolidation. EPIC has three legal entities using AccountsIQ: the asset company, the museum, and the retail store. The company’s main sources of revenue are from ticketing and sales in the gift store, where EPIC uses Access Gamma’s visitor management software for ticketing and retail purchases. AccountsIQ integrates with Access Gamma, which effectively shortcuts much of the manual data entry work, that would otherwise be required, by creating automated reports via the integration.
Aoife also makes use of AccountsIQ’s Purchase Order processing module for further efficiencies. She says,
Prior to AccountsIQ, purchase orders were cumbersome involving emails and handwritten requests. With the PO module we’ve been able to automate all of this, removing overheads, and even tailoring invoices for specific customers. It’s user-friendly and we’re very happy with it.”
Innovation as priority
Innovation has been key to EPIC’s success since its opening. As a 100% digital museum, it must demonstrate technological savviness through both its public displays as well as through its own back-end infrastructure. With AccountsIQ, EPIC can leverage Cloud-based technologies to streamline its processes through automation, anywhere access, and integration with existing systems. All of this combines to increase efficiency so that resources can be spent on facilitating growth. Aoife says,
AccountsIQ has really helped us maximise efficiencies by being so user-friendly and versatile, with some really useful tools. I especially like that we can adapt much of the system ourselves, which is work that previously required the input of an accounts support team to complete. My favourite tool is the GL Explorer, which allows us to review both live and retrospective P&L and balance sheets instantly, as well as drill down to a transactional level. Also, the automated bank reconciliation is very efficient.”
Building for growth
One of the key benefits of AccountsIQ's charity accounting software is the ability to scale easily as EPIC grows. Aoife Smith anticipates that consolidation will soon be on the agenda:
Having had such great results from AccountsIQ’s core features, we are now looking forward to utilising the consolidation module which will help us go further in laying the foundation for our growing museum, and will enable us to provide quarterly consolidated accounts to the Board across the two main entities. We also have three other entities currently using a different accounts package, which we plan to migrate to AccountsIQ before the end of the year.”
Aoife sums up AccountsIQ’s role in laying the foundation for the future:
To grow the museum we need an infrastructure that is flexible and easy to use. We are still growing and will hopefully continue to grow over the next few years. We are confident that AccountsIQ can fulfil our needs as our company grows. It is working really well for us and we don’t anticipate any issues in the future.”
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