The Royal British Legion has selected a suite of hosted finance, eProcurement and document management software from Advanced to streamline the processing of over 600,000 transactions each year. The planned go live is April 2016.
The Legion’s work is encapsulated in its motto: Live On – to the memory of the fallen and the future of the living. The organisation is the nation's biggest Armed Forces charity providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present and their families.
Advanced’s systems will deliver efficiencies for 700 staff at 16 regional offices to support the Legion’s organisational change programme, a major corporate restructure introduced to join up service delivery for members and beneficiaries.
Advanced’s OpenAccounts finance solution will improve financial transparency and compliance relating to the Legion’s 500 investment properties. The system will be used to accurately account for approximately 1,000 individual restricted funds and easily report on how the income generated from them is being spent. It will also automate manually intensive processes to streamline the payment of grants to individuals, other charitable organisations and third parties (such as landlords).
John Graham, Deputy Director General and Director of Finance, The Royal British Legion, explains, “We are seeing strong growth in expenditure and transaction volumes. We therefore needed an integrated and flexible solution to replace inefficient financial processes and outdated systems which would soon become unsupported.”
The OpenAccounts eBIS workflow solution will enable the Legion’s 700 staff to electronically raise purchase orders, create new suppliers and submit expense claims remotely. In addition, powerful workflows will make real-time financial data available to budget holders and track expenditure against budget throughout the year with built-in scenario planning to improve financial control.
Furthermore by using eBIS in conjunction with the document management technology (powered by V1), the charity will eliminate time-consuming administrative processes by electronically storing and approving 50,000 invoices each year. Non-finance documentation including rental agreements, contracts and certificates for works will also be securely archived, further eliminating paper.
Graham continues, “Introducing automated processes will lead to a substantial reduction in manual effort and reduce the likelihood of errors. This will assist us to accurately make payments for over 600,000 financial transactions each year in a timelier manner.
“The solutions will also improve the accessibility and quality of financial information to enable budget holders to better monitor their commitments and the success of fundraising campaigns.”
The new systems will be implemented alongside the charity’s existing specialist and care home management solutions.
Graham concludes, “Having already gained benefits from using Advanced’s software to manage our fundraising activities and resident billing, we are reassured to be working with a supplier who can meet the charity’s evolving needs, both now and in the future.”
Advanced’s financial management software (FMS) has recently been ranked as having the third largest market share in the UK by leading analyst firm Gartner.
