Kilmarnock College to boost financial reporting and eliminate duplication of effort with system from Advanced Business Solutions

Kilmarnock College, a Further Education (FE) college based in East Ayrshire, Scotland, will transform its efficiency levels and improve financial control by implementing a financial management system from Advanced Business Solutions (ABS). The new system, which has integrated electronic workflow and document imaging functionality, will enhance the reporting and accessibility of financial information across the college and reduce administration time through less re-keying of data. The planned go-live is August 2011.

Kilmarnock College required a flexible and scalable financial management solution to replace its restrictive accounting system and to significantly reduce the time spent on invoice registration, reconciliation and authorisation. Following a competitive tender, Kilmarnock College chose ABS’ system due to its strength in reporting, advanced functionality and tight integration qualities.

Michael Breen, Director of Finance at Kilmarnock College, explains, “We recognised that our existing finance system was inefficient and no longer fit for purpose. Through a very robust competitive tendering process we were extremely impressed by the quality of responses we received however ABS stood out at each stage. It was apparent that ABS fully understood our business needs and that its system was ideally suited to fulfill all of our key requirements whilst representing good value for money.”

Breen continues, “ABS also submitted a very thorough and methodical project plan which gave us the reassurance that they had the capabilities and experience of implementing integrated systems to very tight timescales.”

ABS’ integrated software solution will streamline Kilmarnock College’s financial processes and significantly improve the visibility of financial information, resulting in improved decision making whilst ensuring greater financial control. In addition, by seamlessly linking the College’s student records and tracking system with ABS’ financial management system, it will be quicker and easier for the College to extract financial information and tailor reports to its specific needs.

Breen comments, “By automating our financial processes ABS’ system will significantly improve efficiencies within the finance department. The ABS solution will remove unnecessary duplication of effort as we will no longer have to spend time re-keying data from our student records and tracking system. In addition the finance team will no longer be required to manipulate financial data into Excel spreadsheets to provide management reports. This will eliminate the opportunity for associated data entry errors.”

Breen continues, “The system’s advanced reporting capabilities will also allow us to easily interpret more meaningful financial information in greater detail than present, while enabling the closer monitoring of financial plans and project management costs, further improving financial control.”

Furthermore, using the integrated document imaging functionality (powered by Version One’s technology), inbound paper invoices will be scanned, indexed and then linked to relevant ledger in the finance system. Invoices with approved purchase orders will be automatically matched and paid. Those requiring circulation will be electronically routed to the appropriate staff for approval without requiring manual intervention, eliminating the time-consuming and costly circulation of 8,000 paper invoices every year.

Breen adds, “By eliminating manually-intensive processes we will save significant amounts of staff time. The finance team will also be freed-up to concentrate on analysing financial data instead of expending all of their efforts creating information.”

www.kilmarnock.ac.uk