Partner Article

Advanced Business Solutions finance system plays part in Aberdeen City Council’s £5 million savings

Aberdeen City Council has praised Advanced Business Solutions’ (Advanced) financial management system for playing a part in helping the council to achieve a £5 million budget saving. The system included finance solution (eFinancials), budget and forecasting solution (Collaborative Planning), document management technology (powered by V1), and a business intelligence solution (Business Objects).

Advanced’s finance management system has allowed the Council’s 400-strong finance division to exert greater control over budgets and maximise efficiencies, which has contributed to the Council’s significant savings. The Council’s finance team recently scooped two prestigious Accounts Payable News’ Finance Awards in recognition of its financial success.

The Council implemented Advanced’s eFinancials solution, offering users improved visibility over their finances, several years ago followed by Collaborative Planning, which helped to improve accuracy with financial planning, forecasting and budgeting.

Earlier this year the council added Business Objects to the system, providing a complete suite of interactive performance management, information management, reporting, and analysis tools, all of which integrate with both Collaborative Planning and eFinancials.

Aberdeen’s Financial Services Manager, Garry Stevens said: “The solutions integrate perfectly to form a solid financial management system. In the past staff had to circulate numerous spreadsheets in different formats to various people. Since implementing this system we are using a more practical and consistent approach to reporting our budgets.

“Collaborative Planning is user friendly, and now everyone is encouraged to use it, not just finance staff. This means the accountancy team spend less time spent on data collection and more on data analysis. This reduces complexity yet increases accuracy in the budgeting and forecasting process.

“We have greater control of over or under spend across departments. In fact we were one of the few councils that had a balanced budget with an under-spend in the last financial year.”

Aberdeen City Council plans to make further efficiency savings through the use of document management software, powered by V1’s Capture and Archiving technology for paperless invoicing. Last year the Council processed 210,000 invoices, and forecasts the V1 software, which it started using earlier this year, will save it thousands of pounds.

Stevens continued: “V1 has revolutionised our document management processes. Our previous system was purely paper-based and was a laborious process. Staff spent time tracing invoices when the priority should have been sorting payment.

“We selected V1 because it integrates perfectly with e-Financials. The software also allows us to match and file invoices automatically, saving more man hours. It’s great to see a whole batch of invoices automatically feeding through the system and being paid without any effort on our part.

“The V1 technology alone will save the council approximately £80,000 in man hours – three full-time employees to do more valuable work elsewhere in the accounts department. In addition, performance has improved considerably. We now pay 98.2% of our suppliers within 30 days. This technology also fits with our green agenda.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Advanced Business Solutions .