Social Futures is a community service organisation with nearly 50 years of experience working to create positive social change in Australia. With a strong focus on inclusion, fairness and social justice, it provides a range of vital services, and in the past seven years has experienced a massive growth spurt with staff numbers increasing from 120 to 330, and revenue growing from $18 million to $35 million.
A growing organisation in an increasingly complex market
The reporting side of the business was complicated, with monthly and quarterly reporting required for 29 grant funders. These grants supported a variety of crucial activities and programs, including delivery of NDIS Local Area Coordination, and a range of support services in many locations across New South Wales and Queensland, including youth and family services, mental health support, assistance securing housing and staff professional development.
The NFP sector has also undergone a massive change with a move from block funding to fee-for-service. This transition required non-profit organisations to become more efficient in accounting and reporting, as any delays could affect cash flow. The Social Futures board knew that the organisation needed to invest in financial software to support it through the next growth phase.
Faster reporting at the heart of a scalable finance system
CFO Michael Carter investigated a number of ERPs including Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct, interviewing similar organisations about their experiences in implementation, operation and ongoing support. He then engaged Sage partner Giuntabell to implement Sage Intacct and support the small financial team through the integration.
One of the major benefits of Sage Intacct for Social Futures is much faster and more powerful reporting, particularly budget variance analysis required by the finance committee and management.
Improved analysis and flexibility
Another key requirement was the ability to drill down to sufficient levels of detail. For example, employment costs make up 80 per cent of outgoings at Social Futures, so the finance team imports employee-level payroll data into Sage Intacct. The managers can then view these numbers and understand what’s going on with wages.
A flexible reporting structure has proven to be extremely valuable as Social Futures changes its chart of accounts frequently when one grant ends and another begins. Sage Intacct uses an internal ID for account codes which makes it easy for the finance team to rename accounts as required.
Better reports, delivered much faster
The implementation of Sage Intacct saved the organisation five days per quarter in the preparation of reports. Not only do managers and the board receive reports much sooner, helping with important business decisions around resourcing and headcount, but the finance team is able to spend more time providing analysis and strategic advice to the management team, elevating their role in the organisation.
“We are getting reports to people sooner and have more time to be critical and do extra analysis. Rather than looking down at what we’re doing, we can look out at where we need to be going.” said Michael Carter, Chief Financial Officer, Social Futures
Investing time in analysis and insights
The finance team spends time saved producing reports on providing analysis to managers. Reports were redesigned to bring into focus the most relevant areas for managers to review. Expenses that managers have the most control over, such as payroll, sit at the top of the report, while centrally managed items such as rent, cleaning and management fees are at the bottom.
Reconciling expenses is much faster as the finance team can import credit card records from ProMaster into Sage Intacct. Small improvements in common processes accumulate into big time savings when spread across the organisation.
“Generally, we want to remove pain points because what we really want to do is retain people,” Michael says. “We want to make their jobs focused on why they’re here rather than doing these process tasks.”
Michael Carter is predicting a wave of consolidation for NFPs. Those on ERPs will be in a better place, he says.
“There’s a lot of talk of mergers across the sector. Having good systems and processes in place makes us more attractive for someone who may not have got there yet,” said Carter.