Lincs Inspire gets its finances into shape with Advanced

Lincs Inspire, which helps people in North East Lincolnshire lead more active and healthy lives through sport, culture and entertainment, is creating a healthier future for itself after implementing a cloud-hosted financial solution from Advanced*. The social enterprise is using a suite of services to ensure its financial and reporting structures are fit, agile and shape a mobile workforce in keeping with its active ethos.

Lincs Inspire manages five sporting facilities, four libraries, a live entertainment venue, arts and sports development services, and a public archive function. In 2015, it became an independent not-for-profit entity, separated from North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC), and required an affordable and fully integrated financial system that would enable it to successfully operate as an independent and self-reliant service provider. With Advanced’s solution, staff will create efficiencies through greater automation of the company’s key financial processes whilst meeting the specific financial reporting requirements that underpins its status as a registered charity.

“We needed to gain ownership of our own financial and procurement processes, and at the same time wanted to ensure reporting adhered to SORP** requirements, as well as benefit from non-recoverable VAT functionality. It was also important to give our staff the right tools to do their jobs efficiently, and in a more instinctive and user-friendly manner,” said Ian Gooderham of Lincs Inspire. “Advanced also offered the added advantage of bringing together all elements of the integrated software solution from the one supplier.”

The integrated solution comprises OpenAccounts, Advanced’s finance and procurement system with eBIS workflow, V1’s software for automating the purchase-to-pay processes, as well as Intuitive Dashboards, used for graphical dashboard reporting.

The system is hosted in the cloud by Advanced, giving employees secure access to the right information from any device at any location. Given the multiple facilities and sites that Lincs Inspire operates, there is a need for people across all departments to handle vital data, resulting in many forms and processes that impact the financial running of the business, such as sales invoices, timesheets and expenses. The eBIS workflow, which seamlessly integrates into OpenAccounts, provides a simple interface for finance managers, and makes it easier for them to manage and access information across the wider workforce without the need to repeatedly enter information – saving time and reducing the charity’s carbon footprint.

“Although not-for-profit organisations may have different drivers as commercial organisations, this still brings a raft of financial reporting requirements and a pressure to deliver tight control over financial resources. Our solution will positively impact the running of this social enterprise, ensuring they deliver best value to the local community as a result of greater financial control. Furthermore, being future proof, it will allow for expansion into new business opportunities,” comments Jon Wrennall, Chief Technology Officer at Advanced.

-ENDS-

Note to editors

*Advanced Computer Software Group was renamed Advanced on April 11 2016, as part of a global rebrand.
** SORP - Statement of Recommended Practice

About Advanced

Through our enterprise and market focused solutions we positively impact millions of people’s lives through continually investing in our people, partnerships and own technologies to stay focused on our markets’, customers’ and their stakeholders’ needs.
We enable our customers to drive efficiencies, savings and growth opportunities through focused, right-first-time software solutions that evolve with the changing needs of their business and the markets they operate in.
True partnership is the defining thing that makes us different from the competition.
We pride ourselves on delivering focused software solutions for public sector, enterprise commercial and health & care organisations that simplify complex business challenges and deliver immediate value.

Advanced is a Sunday Times Top Track 250 Company 2016 and was ranked in the Deloitte UK Fast 50 which recognises the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the UK and a winner of the Tech Company of the Year in PwC’s UK Tech Awards in 2014.

www.oneadvanced.com

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