Autism Together

Autism Together switched to iplicit for better reporting and visibility over its finances

Autism Together, a charity which supports people with autism from all over the country, had been using Exchequer for 12 years before moving to iplicit. But the finance team found the old system outdated. “We were using an antiquated system and certainly not one that was suited to a nonprofit,” says Louise Parnell, Director of Finance.

“What’s more, it offered very little automation. We could have gone down the route of trying to automate Exchequer, but that would have been expensive.” The charity supports around 400 people – through residential accommodation, supported living, day services and other help for families – as well as around 300 families who receive less intensive support. It has around 770 staff.

What Autism Together needed from its finance system

With a turnover of around £30m annually and a host of funders, including 40 local authorities, Autism Together needs to be able to analyse its finances thoroughly. It must monitor the performance of each of its 400 people it supports and 40 properties, to see whether it is charging appropriately, and to negotiate fees with those local authorities. Previously, the finance team was doing a lot of work manually in spreadsheets.

What’s more, the on-premises Exchequer system was poor when it came to allowing home working, says Louise. “Our IT team did their best to enable us, through convoluted methods, to perform some work at home – but it was often clunky,” she says.

Reasons for choosing iplicit

Reporting was a key part of what Autism Together wanted, along with automation and good user interaction for budget-holders. The charity could have moved to Exchequer’s 'hosted' cloud offering, but felt the system was “outdated and expensive”, says Louise. The team looked at quite a few alternatives and drew up a shortlist of iplicit and Dynamics.

Although initially impressed with Dynamics, the team decided it was not the right solution for a nonprofit. “It had far too much functionality over and beyond what we would ever use. Also, we would never have a say in any future development because we would always be considered just a minor player."

‍

“iplicit did everything we wanted it to do – and in a very straightforward way. And we were reassured by the fact that some of the iplicit team were original founders of Exchequer and so really understood us.” Louise Parnell, Director of Finance

Benefits of iplicit

iplicit’s cloud accounting software for charities and non-profits features have brought a host of benefits for Autism Together:

• The charity’s sites and services are set up as different cost centres in the system, so it is easy to monitor their performance;
• Budget holders can better control spending thanks to the workflow authorisation features, allowing costs to be approved on iplicit’s mobile app;
• Compiling consolidated accounts is much more straightforward, without the hours spent on spreadsheets.

“We love the reporting side of iplicit. Previously, we had to download and slice up the data ourselves, then send out the accounts to budget holders. We now have all our management accounts in the system, so our budget holders can look at the accounts within iplicit and drill down to see all the detail. That moves the emphasis away from a situation where the finance system is being managed by the accountants. Instead, it’s managed by the people that really manage the finances. Many people are used to using Excel and the reporting is set up in a sort of pivot table, which is brilliant.”

‍

“We’ve seen a lot of time savings with iplicit. At the end of the month, there used to be 30 or so reports to compile in Excel. Now, it’s basically self-serve for the budget holders, so that has saved an incredible amount of time.” Louise Parnell, Director of Finance

Straightforward implementation  

“iplicit said the implementation would be straightforward – and it was!” says Louise. “The iplicit team managed the implementation process brilliantly. The implementation consultant, Ian Ross, was great all the way through. My project leader also engaged with that and led the team through it brilliantly.”

Verdict on iplicit

“Often, when you bring in a new system, not everything’s an improvement – but that hasn’t been the case with iplicit,” says Louise. "We had a team meeting recently and every single member of the team sees a huge benefit in using iplicit compared with the previous system.”