Member Article

Fire Authority goes live with Advanced’s budgeting system integrated into SAP to ensure effective financial planning

Fire Authority goes live with Advanced’s budgeting system integrated into SAP to ensure effective financial planning Careful budget monitoring at Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority is critical following decreased Government funding 03 June 2014 – Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority has gone live with a budgeting and forecasting system from Advanced Business Solutions (Advanced) to ensure effective financial planning.

The Authority went live with Advanced’s Collaborative Planning integrated into its SAP finance system in April 2014. The solution is gradually being rolled-out to the management accounting team who plan to be fully utilising the system for its medium-term planning cycle over the following months.

Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority, which has an annual net revenue budget of around £28 million, uses Buckinghamshire County Council’s SAP financial system’ and data from Collaborative Planning will be uploaded into this system.

Mark Hemming, Technical Accountant at Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority, says, “Collaborative Planning is critical for organisations like ours which are still dealing with the impact of a decrease in funding. Ensuring that we are planning properly and monitoring our budget is imperative.”

Prior to implementing Collaborative Planning, the Authority’s finance team used multiple spreadsheets to create and monitor its budgets. Advanced’s system, which will be used by the management accounting team, will provide one central ‘version of the truth’ to be used by all. This will free-up staff for more value-added work while providing a more holistic picture of the Authority’s finances.

Hemming says, “We will be using Collaborative Planning to create our medium-term plans for the coming year, and our income/expenditure plans. We have a statutory duty to set a balanced budget and this system will enable us to streamline the process.”

“All the data will be in one place - reporting will be easier and errors will be reduced as we will not need to link different spreadsheets or worry about keying in data more than once.”

The Authority chose Collaborative Planning for its flexibility to adapt to future requirements by building in additional models, such as a capital planning module; and because it is customisable. Members of the finance team will be able to build their own customised reports that present data in their chosen format rather than to pre-defined rules. Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority oversees a fire and rescue service that serves a population of more than 750,000. Its membership is drawn from Buckinghamshire County Council and Milton Keynes Council. -Ends- Notes to Editor About Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority

http://www.bucksfire.gov.uk/BucksFire/Who+we+are+and+what+we+do/AboutBuckinghamshireFireRescueService.htm About Advanced Business Solutions www.advancedcomputersoftware.com/abs Advanced Business Solutions (Advanced) provides leading integrated business applications and services that enable public, private and third sector organisations to retain control, improve visibility and gain efficiencies whilst continually improving corporate performance. Advanced prides itself on getting close to its customers by understanding their businesses and responding to their evolving needs.

Advanced’s software systems comprise core accounting/financial management, procurement, supply chain management, human resource and payroll systems, integrated with a range of collaborative, document management and business intelligence solutions to extend the value and effectiveness of the finance, human resource and payroll departments. Management information systems for school and academies are also provided through Advanced’s subsidiary, Advanced Learning. Advanced also provides specialist vertical solutions for the not-for-profit and legal markets. All solutions can be delivered as a managed or bureau service.

Customers are from both the public and private sectors and include Companies House, Newcastle City Council, NHSScotland, Norfolk Constabulary, Edge Hill University, WH Smith, Royal Bank of Scotland, Aer Lingus, National Express Group, DFS and RSPB.

Advanced Business Solutions is a division of Advanced Computer Software Group plc, a leading supplier of software and IT services to the health, care and business services sectors.

Press contacts

Liz Ebbrell & Kathryn Howard, Advanced Computer Software Group pr@advancedcomputersoftware.com +44(0)1625 856 513

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