Community SolutionsThis NFP is now transparent and ready for growth
Community Solutions was established in 1999. The organisation grew rapidly to 250 staff and 100 volunteers across 18 sites in regional Queensland. As the business grew the limitations of the old finance and spreadsheet-based systems were causing major efficiency, audit and reporting problems.
Challenge
“We outgrew our MYOB Premier system” – Group Accountant, Beth Miller stated that MYOB Premier was “An excellent system. We liked its simplicity. Our accountants and auditors all liked the system. Also, the system was easily adopted by our staff”.
“Then we merged with another NFP and our data volume doubled. MYOB Premier simply could not cope. Daily and monthly tasks became frustrating. There were inherent limitations in the software especially with management reporting. Back then, we needed to rely on spreadsheets to produce the reports we needed. This caused major workload and deadline issues for our accounting team. We needed to automate our business reporting workflows”.
“We needed to automate our management reporting workflows.”
Solution
Finding the right system to replace MYOB Premier – “We spent several months reviewing potential systems before considering MYOB Exo. Exo was able to provide us with flexible reporting, a Microsoft SQL database and local support”.
“Exo was able to provide an integrated solution for payroll, accounting and management reporting. We considered some other lower-cost systems but in the end we chose MYOB Exo due to the power that Exo was able to deliver. Exo is built on powerful technology and is able to cope with our increasing transaction volumes as our business continues to grow”.
“Local support was important to us.”
Automating our business and reporting workflows – “We identified several key requirements, including a powerful and flexible management reports and analysis. We needed our reports to be automated and to eliminate the time and potential errors that we had previously experienced, as a result of double-handling data (via spreadsheets). We also needed to budget and track income and expenses on multiple levels: organisation, business unit, program and site location. MYOB Exo was able to solve all of these challenges.
The learning curve – “Training was carried out using our own data model and coding structure. This method of training made our learning curve much easier”.
“We received excellent support from our local MYOB EXO partner. As a result we have achieved major improvements in our business efficiency .”
Outcome
Automated management reporting – “Thanks the MYOB Exo Microsoft SQL database we are able to design management reports that are specific to our business strategy. We run reports by site and/or by program (the manager is able to choose which method to use the method). We are able to drill down into the detail underlying information. Also, we have a full audit trail, so our audits are now much smoother”.
“We now have a full audit trail. Our audits are now much more efficient.”
Before
- Major increase in volume of data after the merger. We outgrew MYOB Premier
- We were struggling with reporting requirements. We needed to identify how funds were being spent
- Reports were not adequate. Downloading data to spreadsheets was time-wasting and error-prone
- MYOB Premier did not have the ability to be customised to our needs
After
- Flexible, customised, multi-level management reporting
- Report analysis is now available on business units and programs
- Able to budget on multiple levels
- Fully integrated payroll and financial accounting system
- Report on summary level then drill down to detail – income / expenses
- Audits are now much easier and more efficient
Community Solutions V02