Locality enhances financial systems with Access
Locality, the leading nationwide network of development trusts, settlements and social action centres, has made an investment to enhance project visibility and control, it has secured financial management with Access Dimensions & FocalPoint.
Nicholas Platt, Finance Officer explains, “We were looking for a new system to help streamline our finance functions, improve our reporting capabilities and give our budget holders a direct link to report on their projects without having to request reports from finance.” Previous project cost reporting was manually processed proving a time consuming and non-viable option for the development of the organisation.
Nicholas says “We also wanted to improve our expenses and timesheets procedures that currently require a lot of double entering data as they do not link directly to our accounts package.” After experiencing a lack of connectivity the introduction of Dimensions & FocalPoint eliminates the need for data duplication.
With the integration between both Dimensions & FocalPoint, Locality will now simplify business processes. Nicholas continues “We’re expecting quicker processing of expenses, including approval and then once approved the direct posting of expenses into Dimensions. Access provide a timesheet system that is simple and effective at recording staff time, managing our TOIL (Time off in lieu) system and directly recharging staff time to projects through Dimensions.”
Nicholas explains, “Locality will now receive improved reporting – from live data management accounts reports through excel live link, to country wide project managers being able to report on their projects through FocalPoint.” With FocalPoint the automation and empowerment to staff and projects will now cast greater control organisation wide. He continues, “With more efficient purchase and sales invoices processing systems, this will free up staff time to concentrate on our core functions and generating new business.”
“We evaluated Access against three other suppliers, none of them could match Access’ FocalPoint. In the end FocalPoint was the key factor in our decision,” concludes Nicholas.
Rob Barr, NFP Divisional Director for Access, explains, “Locality deserve to have complete control and visibility of their financial goals. With FocalPoint the organisation will now see the best return possible, fully developed and controlled projects through to completion.”
Locality is the leading nationwide network of community enterprises, development trusts, settlements and social action centres. Locality’s membership has expertise in community asset ownership, community enterprise, collaborative working, community voice and advocacy.
Locality is running the ‘My Community Rights’ support service providing advice and grants on the Community Rights, Neighbourhood Planning and Our Place. Locality was created through the merger of the Development Trusts Association and bassac and commenced formal operation in April 2011. Find out more about Locality on Locality’s website. www.locality.org.uk
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Access is a leading author of fully integrated business management software. The portfolio spans solutions for ERP, finance, HR, Payroll, warehousing, business intelligence, professional service automation and manufacturing. More than 5,000 UK businesses and not-for-profit organisations use Access solutions to improve their performance, profitability and drive growth, unlocking their business potential through improved business insight.
Vertical focus and industry-specific solutions differentiate Access in the market and templated solutions make for rapid and easy deployments. Using Access software to automate operations, streamline processes and share real-time business information anytime, anywhere, businesses can benefit from significant performance improvements.
Access is one of the top five fastest growing UK software developers in The Sunday Times Buyout Track 100 2012 and featured in last year’s Profit Track 100. On-going commitment to excellence, customers and employees has also placed the company among the UK’s top employers in The Sunday Times’ 100 ‘Best Companies to Work For’ 2011.
In the past 12 months Access has completed seven M&A deals including, thankQ, French BI specialists Prelytis and Delta Software, plus the Access customer base of a number of resellers.
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