Accounting for charities and not-for-profits

AccountsIQ is helping WCVA with everything from trustee reports to SORP reporting.

“The more we use AccountsIQ, the more we realise how much it can do.” 

WCVA is the national membership body for voluntary organisations in Wales. It manages funding, training and a range of support services that help charities and non-profits ‘make a bigger difference together’. In the months before the UK’s first lockdown, WCVA’s Finance Director, Tracey Marsh, recognised that they needed better financial reporting and started looking at new finance systems.

Tracey Marsh, Finance Director, WCVA

“We weren’t happy with the reporting capabilities in our existing system, Exchequer,” says Tracey. “Every time we wanted a report that wasn’t standard, such as comparing actuals to budget with variances, we had to pay extra. That was on top of an already high annual fee.”

Lockdown accelerated the need for change

When lockdown happened, this sense of dissatisfaction turned into more urgent and serious issues. As with many other organisations, the transition to home working accelerated the need for digital transformation.

“Our old system was server-based rather than Cloud-based,” explains Tracey.

“It was clunky; dropping all the time. And it just got worse and worse.  In that first lockdown, most of the pain from a finance point of view was because of the system. It meant we were working twice as many hours to do the same amount of work as when we were in the office. We simply couldn’t continue like that.”

AccountsIQ came in at a good price

The WCVA team first heard about AccountsIQ from their Scottish counterparts, the SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations). They were already using AccountsIQ and were happy to vouch for the system’s benefits. Nonetheless, WCVA still did their due diligence and conducted a thorough analysis of AccountsIQ against Sage, Iplicit and Exchequer.

“We chose AccountsIQ partly because of cost,” admits Tracey. “It came in at a reasonable price and we liked that there’s flexibility in the pricing. With so much uncertainty, we didn’t want to commit to a fixed cost that wasn’t linked to the number of users.”

Finance processes are now automated and seamless  

WCVA were also keen to move away from old, manual ways of working to more automated, seamless processes.

“This is something I love about AccountsIQ,” says Tracey. “Everything is self- contained within the system; even our bank reconciliations are now automated. You’re also able to attach documents to transactions; our auditors think this is wonderful.”

Budget holders have more autonomy

One of Tracey’s key objectives was for budget holders to have access to certain parts of the system, so they’d be more self-sufficient. WCVA has around 40 system users. Five are finance team members and the others are set up as light users which enables the wider business to manage approvals and access reports. 

The next step will be to start using AccountsIQ’s automated consolidation features. WCVA has two subsidiaries. One has already moved onto AccountsIQ from Xero and the other will follow in due course.

Multi-dimensional reporting is so much easier

Like many non-profits, WCVA uses AccountsIQ’s BI codes and multi-dimensional reporting to manage their complex accounting and reporting needs.

“One of our dimensions is used to distinguish between restricted and unrestricted funds,” explains Tracey. “Then we have lots of projects to which we allocate salaries and other costs; that’s another list of dimensions.

We’ve also created other dimensions so we can deliver detailed reports to our trustees that show exactly what each project is contributing to the organisation. Once we've closed the accounts, I can just run this multiple KPI report for the trustees. I used to have to do that manually and now AccountsIQ pretty much does it all for me, it’s brilliant.”

AccountsIQ also helps with SORP reporting

WCVA’s finance team created their Chart of Accounts in AccountsIQ to align with their SORP reporting.

“Now, we just run the GL explorer and there's the statutory accounts. Of course, we still have to do the notes ourselves, but the balance sheet is all there. It’s phenomenal!”

AccountsIQ is so easy to use, WCVA are using it more and more

When asked to sum up the single best thing about AccountsIQ, Tracey responds:

“As soon as we had the demo with Ellen at AccountsIQ, I could see it was a user-friendly system with a logical, intuitive layout. It was just lovely to look at.

Also, Ellen was so knowledgeable and helpful, I knew we’d work well together. In fact, we’ve found that the more we use AccountsIQ, the more we learn and realise just how much more it can do for us.”

Learn More

AccountsIQ solves the often complex accounting, productivity and reporting challenges of over 100 charities such as the Archdiocese of Dublin and Lepra. View our customer testimonials.

Find out more about our charity accounting software.

Innovative approach to multi-dimensional reporting killer AccountsIQ feature for Arts charity, Artichoke Trust

Artichoke Trust is a charitable organisation which works with artists to create large-scale public art events across the UK. Artichoke’s ambitious outdoor art projects include the Lumiere light festivals and Antony Gormley’s One & Other Fourth Plinth commission. As a charity managing multiple projects at once, each with varying budgets and funding sources, Artichoke Trust has unique accounting requirements when it comes to project accounting which need to be SORP compliant. In particular, it requires a granular level of detail to ensure accurate recording of core project costs as well as the ability to record project costs against phases.

Neil Goulder, Director of Finance & Operations at Artichoke Trust, had been using Sage Financials as his accounting tool but admits it had a “number of serious shortcomings”. When he learned of Sage’s plan to withdraw the product, it was an opportunity to look around for alternatives which might better fit his particular requirements in Project Accounting and provide the structure he needs for SORP compliance. Neil says,

I started to look for a good Cloud-based replacement that is strong on dimensional reporting and analysis codes. Among a dozen candidates was AccountsIQ. I took a peek at a demo system and really liked it. Great, scalable product, with an innovative approach to multi-dimensional coding.

‘Conditional’ dimensions for accurate posting

Strong dimensional analysis is key for Neil. AccountsIQ allows for up to six customisable dimensions linked to a unique BI code, plus an infinite number of codes that can be assigned to each dimension. Reporting is possible across all dimensions and codes. AccountsIQ’s key strength is that only valid permutations of Analysis Codes can be used when data is input, which significantly reduces the risk of human error when it comes to tracking costs. Neil explains,

Dimensions are really important to us. We looked at Sage 50, but that only had two dimensions. We needed at least four, covering cost centres; projects; project phases; and individual light installations. There are some very expensive systems which can do it but there aren’t many affordable systems which offer this level of flexibility. That was an absolute ‘must’ from our point of view. AccountsIQ is the only product I’ve seen that allows you to create these ‘conditional’ dimensions.

Greater efficiency through automation and streamlined workflow

AccountsIQ features an automated bank reconciliation functionality that has helped Neil speed up the period end reconciliation process.

I really like the way the Bank Rec module works. The system with Sage Financials was so overcomplicated we never used it and worked in spreadsheets instead. AccountsIQ is very straightforward. I like the way it recognises past transactions and fills in as much of the information as it can, which really speeds up the process.

Neil is able to upload paperwork against transactions which makes it much easier to provide information to auditors and also facilitate a mostly paperless environment. Ultimately, AccountsIQ enables Neil to keep all of his data in one place, largely automated, without the need for other spreadsheets or manual processes.

With smart use of the dimensions coding structure, I can get every piece of information needed into AccountsIQ so that I don’t have to maintain control accounts manually in Excel. It saves us a huge amount of time.

Ease of access to data for SORP reporting

AccountsIQ’s Excel Add-in offers further efficiencies for Neil, allowing him to use a real-time data link from AccountsIQ to create tables in Excel which are fed into the SORP compliant statutory accounts prepared in Word. This means updates are refreshed instantly as changes are made to Statutory accounts.

AccountsIQ is brilliant at accommodating the structure needed for the SORP. We pull the information into our format live from AccountsIQ through Excel. It’s an incredibly quick and efficient process.

Lightning-fast implementation

Having initially set an ambitious release target of two weeks, Neil was able to implement AccountsIQ at Artichoke Trust in a record-breaking two days. This was in large part due to Neil’s own tenacity in getting to grips with the BI codes and how they could best be mapped to his needs. AccountsIQ’s development team gave Neil access to a test system so he could model the BI codes before going live. He had also exported and cleaned the static data from his old accounting system such as customer information, bank account details, and the nominal ledger structure. This level of preparation allowed Neil to go live with AccountsIQ so quickly. He says,

I hoped we might break all records and implement it in a fortnight as our new accounting year started on the First of April. I signed a contract Wednesday morning and we went live at 4:30 the next day.

Summing up his experience

The elements that have really made a difference are AccountsIQ’s innovative implementation of analysis codes, the attaching of invoices, and the bank reconciliation module. These are things I didn’t have before, and they work beautifully. These features have made the biggest difference to the way I work, giving me the information I need. Of all of these, BI codes are the absolute killer feature that puts AccountsIQ head and shoulders above the competition.

Anne Somerville, Financial Controller & Company Secretary at American Chamber of Commerce Ireland started looking for accounting software in late 2016 to replace their TAS system, now part of Sage.

The organisation is a not for profit membership organisation representing both US companies in Ireland and Irish companies with businesses in the US.

They wanted to find an efficiently priced, user friendly and intuitive system that could help them conduct their business transactions and develop their reporting structures and were delighted when they found AccountsIQ.

The challenge

Anne knew her organisation needed an accounting system suitable for charities that was easy to use, efficient and effective, giving them the custom reporting functionality they required. As her team was not always sitting at a desk, Anne was interested in what a cloud solution could offer.

The problem with their old system was that it was clunky to use and was time consuming in the reporting functionality. It was cumbersome to extract the data or get the level of reporting required, even though the transaction volumes were not large.  They would spend a lot of time downloading data into Excel and ‘playing with it’ to get the information in the format they needed.

The solution

After evaluating four charity accounting software products, AccountsIQ was selected, because of its clear, simple and intuitive way of working.

Originally Anne felt they should complete their year end reporting and audit before looking to implement the new system.  However, 4 months into their search for a new accounting system, AccountsIQ was implemented and ready to use for their new financial year starting January 1^st, six months ahead of their expectations.

Key benefits

AccountsIQ has been in use for 7 months now and Anne has found month end reporting a vast improvement:

AccountsIQ is really excellent. It’s intuitive, simple to use and the implementation was outstanding. Now we have complete transparency and visibility of our financials. We can easily drill down to individual transactions and even down to items on an individual invoice without having to pull out any invoices or back-ups.

AccountsIQ’s implementation team helped design and create a set of customised reports for Anne, which she adds:

The reporting is high quality, AccountsIQ has created a set of custom reports for us and it’s very simple now to extract the information we need. It’s a vast improvement on what we had before and I can see the long-term benefits of the system being invaluable for our organisation.

Another key benefit of AccountsIQ is that it has been integrated with their bank accounts, which enables them to manage all payments and receipts online directly with the bank and download all bank transaction data directly and post automatically to AccountsIQ and complete bank reconciliations seamlessly.

The plan is now to implement the AccountsIQ Approval Workflow module to automate approval of purchase orders and invoices.  The final phase is to integrate with the organisation’s CRM system, which will enable the team to look up customer details, see balances etc from within the CRM, without having to log into the finance system.