Church Mission Society saves £50,000 a year with Access Dimensions & FocalPoint
Howard Lake | 26 July 2012 | News
25 July 2012 – Colchester, UK – The Church Mission Society (CMS) has experienced huge time and cost savings along with greater visibility and control of funds after implementing Access Dimensions & FocalPoint to manage its finances and charitable projects. The system, which is integrated with Raiser’s Edge, has dramatically improved efficiency and productivity, providing faster access to information for its team.
Stafford Cruse, head of finance for the CMS, commented, “Access Dimensions & FocalPoint has saved us more than 200 hours each month, equating to £50k per year. Process automation and greater control over project reporting and spend means we have more time and resource to share the mission of God and serve communities worldwide; everyone’s benefiting all round.”
Originally founded in 1799, CMS is a community of people in mission who want the world to know Jesus. It is committed to a global and local mission that is pioneering, evangelistic, relational and faithful. CMS is engaged in a wide range of work including education, medicine, advocacy, agriculture, engineering and pastoral care.
Prior to Access, CMS had been using Sage 100 which was not meeting the charity’s needs. “It was hard, if not impossible, to report on our activities adequately,” said Stafford. “Fund accounting is critical for us. We need to know where our money is being allocated in a timely manner.”
Since implementing the Access solution, the charity has reaped many benefits, particularly as the web-based self-service facilities allow staff to access details of their project spend and status wherever they are based. Access’ project costing functionality has made the biggest difference to CMS – which has 750 active projects being funded at any one point in time – providing greater flexibility in setting up its chart of accounts.
Automated processes have improved efficiency throughout CMS. Non-finance staff can now enter transactions such as purchase requests through FocalPoint – instead of using five different paper-based forms. “Using FocalPoint, we’ve streamlined our authorisation process so we’re not passing invoices around the building or losing them on people’s desks,” said Stafford.
CMS team members are now working from the same data and have access to documents through Access’ integrated document management solution. “Our fundraisers can view gift aid declarations and membership forms whenever they need them. This saves them time, and it’s also had a positive effect on our finance team, who now receive 50 per cent less requests for information.”
The reduction in admin has created other noticeable improvements. CMS no longer has to manually reconcile its systems, and with other benefits this saves the finance department two days every month. “We’ve been able to reduce headcount in our back office by nearly 20 per cent. That’s allowed us to redirect those funds into mission opportunities.”
Better management and departmental reporting facilities are also saving half a day each month. “We’re able to run more than 160 mission partner reports in five minutes. Previously, that would have taken a fundraiser three days a month using spreadsheets to build the reports,” said Stafford, who also notes the benefits of real-time, remote access to information via Access’ browser-based dashboard. “This has made a big difference to our staff because they can track how we’re performing against KPIs such as the progress on appeals, increase in members, major gifts pledged and active donors.”
Communicating financial data in a more visual format has provided greater clarity and understanding too. “It’s driven discussion on many areas of our work such as how to develop fundraising and better utilisation of resources, as well as helping to drive the development of the five year financial plan.”
CMS is now looking to make further improvements including integrating the conference booking system with Access Dimensions to automate the production of sales orders. “As a result of all the positive benefits that we’ve experienced, it’s spurred us on to automate our processes further. Amongst other things, we’ll probably look to utilise Access’ mobile solutions for activities such as expenses to make further efficiencies across the charity,” concluded Stafford.
For more information on Access, its consultancy and software solutions contact Diana Ellul-Grech on 0845 345 3300 or visit
http://www.theaccessgroup.com.
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About Access:
Since 1991, Access has become established as a leading business solutions provider to the mid-market. It helps organisations improve performance, profitability and cost efficiency by delivering integrated organisation-wide solutions spanning finance, HR and payroll, professional services automation, document management and manufacturing. More than 5,000 customers rely on Access to drive growth and unlock the potential of their people as well as their organisation through better business insight. It has nine offices across the UK and Ireland and employs over 350 people.
A £50 million investment by private equity firm, Lyceum Capital, in 2011 marked a significant step change in Access’ growth trajectory, cementing the company’s notable position amongst the top five fastest growing UK software developers in The Sunday Times Buyout Track 100 List 2012 and in last year’s Profit Track 100. Access’ on-going commitment to excellence, its customers and its people also placed it amongst the UK’s top employers in The Sunday Times 100 ‘Best Companies to Work For’ 2011.
Accreditations and memberships:
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
Business Application Software Developers Association (BASDA)
Access’ software is recognised by HM Revenue & Customs
Awards:
Inclusion in The Sunday Times Buyout Track 100 list (47th)
Inclusion in The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 list (63rd)
Inclusion in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list for mid-market companies (85th)
M&A Awards 2011 for ‘Buy-out of the Year’
Accountancy Age Award 2010 for ‘Software Package of the Year’
SIFT Media Software Satisfaction Awards 2010 for ‘Enterprise Accounting & Finance’
SIFT Media Software Satisfaction Awards 2010 for ‘SME Human Resources & Human Capital Management’
FrontRange Partner Awards 2010 for ‘CRM Partner of the Year’
Green IT Awards 2010 for ‘Environmental Accounting Software of the Year’
Construction Computing Awards 2010 and 2011, ‘Construction Accounting Software of the Year’
Media information:
Helen Carpenter
Head of Group PR
Access UK Ltd
T: +44 (0) 1206 322575 / 07833 936311
F: +44 (0) 1206 322956
E: he*************@th************.com
W: http://www.theaccessgroup.com
Tim Cole
PR Executive
Access UK Ltd
T: +44 (0) 1206 322575
F: +44 (0) 1206 322956
E: ti******@th************.com
W: http://www.theaccessgroup.com
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.