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Finance IT case study: ShelterBox

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22nd Feb 2012
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ShelterBox accountant Rob Evans tells Robert Lovell how a new stock and financials system is helping the fast-growing disaster relief charity to provide emergency shelter and life-saving supplies for families around the world.

Rob Evans leads a small finance team at ShelterBox HQ in Cornwall. After a rapid surge in the past couple of years it became clear that they were exceeding the capabilities of their Sage 50 Accounts system.

“We outgrew [it] really, and we were looking around for another system to allow us to grow.”

The top priority for a replacement was to improve stock control and the ability to track costs. In the end the selection process came down to a choice between IRIS Exchequer and Access. “We went with Access as we felt more comfortable with it and it seemed more flexible. We were under time constraints to make a decision as well, but we liked the look of the Access and have been pleased with it overall.”

The charity went live with Access Dimensions in the middle of May 2010. The modules implemented include Bill of Materials, Purchase Order Processing, Works Orders, Purchase Ledger and Financials, with a ‘panintelligence’ dashboard sitting on top of all the modules with full access to all the relevant data.

Evans continued: “Our senior management team is often out raising awareness about the work we do, so it’s useful for them to have key data readily available on their lap tops via a VPN.

“We can tailor each individual view to what the user needs or wants to see, we can cater to the various managers’ need for key facts and key data,” Evans explained.

The dashboard

ShelterBox uses the dashboard in a variety of ways, but mainly to show the cost of each box deployed to a disaster area. The average cost varies depending on where the box is going, the contents and the transport. 

Evans explained: “We had some good ideas as to what we wanted to be able to see and when the consultants came in they wrote the scripts for us. Since then, I have done a bit more and tailored some of it. The GUI [graphical user interface] is good and intuitive and I like the fact that I can use my own colours. We predominantly use bar charts as they’re very easy to look at, but we also have some line charts for trends and a couple of speedometers for the stock value and bank balance. Finance lends itself to bar charts and pie charts very well,” Evans said, continuing: “We’re using the dashboard to track disasters, which are plotted straight into a map view. This allows us immediately to see what and where we have deployed, and this includes a number of disasters which are not in the eye of the public.”

Regarding KPIs, the organisation is focused on the number of boxes in stock and income levels, and is always trying to finance as much stock as possible - keeping a close eye on cash flow and the bank balance.

“One thing which is very useful is that we also make reports available via the dashboard. All my management accounts and the latest month’s figures are dropped in with a link to a PDF. Hence, when our senior management are out in the field they always have access to the latest management data,” said Evans.

Stock control 

The new system allows Shelterbox to see exactly how many boxes it has in stock at the different stock points around the world, ready to be deployed.

The dashboard gives an immediate picture of how many boxes they have at each stock point and the stock it has on order so they know exactly  what they have in process.

However, Evans explained, “It is difficult from a stock management point of view because we never know where and when a disaster might strike and, more to the point, how bad it will be. We need to have sufficient stock available for immediate deployment. The more financing we can get to increase the stock levels the better.”

In terms of reporting, Evans said: “We use a Crystal Reports writer to create various in-house reports, stock reports and financial reporting. A lot of those we also attach to the dashboard, such as monthly reports.” 

Financials at-a-glance

Evans has implemented speedometers for quick indication of trends and threshold alerts. He explained: “We keep a keen eye on the total bank balance and the level of sponsored boxes not yet deployed. This fluctuates in response to the level of box donations received and boxes deployed.”

His personal dashboard lay-out is focused on transport and materials, as those are the main costs. “As an organisation we can make decisions incredibly fast. The dashboard helps us to make sure that the basis for making these decisions is solid and sound. We’re now developing some quite sophisticated forecasting and the Access solution with the dashboard has helped a lot in the process,” Evans concluded.

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By jameshpatmore
01st Mar 2012 12:55

ShelterBox and Rotary

I'm sorry that your contributor made no mention of the fact that it is Rotarians who raise most of the money for Shelter Boxes.

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