Foundation Systems to implement Project Finance at Patchwork Housing Association
December 2003 - Patchwork Housing Association (PHA) began in the early 1970s developing a model of communal living in shared housing. By 2003, they now own and manage over 250 properties, providing accommodation for over 700 tenants in 12 London boroughs.
With a stated IT strategy of being proactive in problem resolution as well as supporting the business functions, it became evident that a new global Finance solution was required to replace the out of date incumbent. The organisation has grown rapidly from £900,000 turnover in 1990 to a budgeted £9m for 2003. In addition, Finance has historically delivered a ‘bean counting’ service to PHA and the organisation wished to develop and improve the use of technology to move away from what was an inwardly facing service to a ‘value for money’ financial support of the business.
PHA produced an Invitation to Tender document outlining this vision and invited a number of suppliers, covering a variety of packages, to respond. They deliberately targeted packages that has a proven track record in the social housing marketplace, so they knew that whichever was selected their functional requirements would be satisfied. As a result, the evaluation criteria was heavily scored towards implementation, services, value add and cost, rather than product functionality.
Following the submission of tenders by all suppliers and conducting reference site visits Foundation was chosen as the successful supplier. PHA cited our clear understanding of their requirements and the quality and capability of our implementation service as key determinants. In addition, Foundation will deliver the following benefits to PHA:
- Fully reworked and rationalised chart of accounts to support a revised reporting structure.
- Reduction in the number of suppliers on the purchase ledger by around 70%.
- Improved cashbook management by taking advantage of online bank statements and automated reconciliation to the finance system.
- Minimising manual duplication and the potential for re-input errors by interfacing the separate payroll system to the new Finance system.
- Moving to BACSTEL IP the new Internet based standard for BACS payments.
- Timely and accurate expense and finance reporting, with the ability to ‘drill down’ or ‘condense up’ the information, using the SunSystems Vision tool.
To learn more about SunSystems and Foundation in the social housing market please contact us.
