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“Capita IB Solutions has a solid reputation as a leading integrated, affordable business management solution for medium to large sized organisations.”

Tayside Contracts

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Tayside Contracts

In the past, Tayside Contracts used software that had only very limited project management functionality. The software was not capable of generating complete job costing reports so accountants maintained a running summary of project costs in a spreadsheet. This took a considerable amount of time and meant that the spreadsheets were often considerably outdated so project managers often didn’t find out about a problem until it was too late to do anything about it. Tayside Contracts wanted to improve time recording efficiency, automate the posting of time costs and improve the range and flexibility of management reporting. A project team was brought together to find a better way to serve customers and improve Tayside Contracts business efficiencies through an integrated Project Management solution. To ensure that all the important criteria would be met, key members of management were invited to participate in in-depth software demonstrations as well as on-site visits to see the various software packages in action. During the process of evaluating software solutions, the importance of having a single, integrated Project Management solution became exceedingly clear.

Tayside Contracts concluded its search for a truly integrated Project Management solution with Capita IB Solutions. The solution offered seamless integration, sophisticated reporting features and the ability to capture more relevant information.

Ed Middleton, IT Manager at Tayside Contracts said, “Having the Job Costing, Fleet Management, Job Billing and Time Recording systems in one package was the key. Tayside Contracts also found the software’s scalability an important factor; choosing Capita IB Solutions, in part, because it could be customised to meet the organisations specific business requirements.”

Capita IB Solutions has a solid reputation as a leading integrated, affordable business management solution for medium to large sized organisations. Middleton continues, “The ability to integrate all Tayside Contracts business functions into one easy to use system was attractive, as was the built-in job costing module that would allow Tayside Contracts to track all relevant information relating to each project it was working on.

Tayside Contracts provides catering , cleaning, vehicle maintenance and civil engineering services within both the public and private sectors, operating on a commercial basis. Controlling over 15,000 jobs annually, we needed a single integrated system to support the construction business and ensure our continued success in a highly competitive marketplace.

The team at Capita IB Solutions quickly demonstrated that they understood the needs of our organisation and worked with us to develop the solution that will help us deliver the quality management information we require.” The applications are based on the eSeries Framework, which provides an integrated environment for the management of financial information. Each application can be run as part of the integrated suite or independently.

Job Costing provides up-to-the-minute information on jobs in progress. The facility is used to assign costs to a particular job, to a category of plant or equipment or to a particular project, task or activity. The system provides updates to the Job Costing Ledger automatically. In addition, it monitors and controls job costs, discovers full costing for all jobs or projects in hand makes profit/loss projections for a job; and manages and measures projects against budgets.

Fleet Management allows Tayside Contracts to maintain a record of Fleet Items, plant or equipment and to record costs and expenditure against them. Costs and expenditure is captured by the Fleet Management system automatically or can be imported from third-party sources. Fleet maintenance programs can be scheduled to take account of seasonal changes and other periodic variations and load requirements.

The system allows managers to track date-sensitive information such as fleet booking details, fleet location and availability. It assists in maintaining planned service schedules and in Monitoring fleet income and costs. It can arrange for the billing of charges using, the Job billing module.

Job Billing issues certificates for payment to clients against jobs performed or work carried out on their behalf. It is configured to pass details of the certificates automatically to the Sales Ledger, allowing the necessary invoices or credit notes to be raised. The system reports on payment certificates, retentions, standard civil engineering billing methods and VAT calculations, as well as various pricing methods.

Time Recording permits project managers to monitor, analyse and control staff costs and performance against jobs or projects, and allows the organisation to meet Working Time and Driver Hour regulations. Time Recording offers complete flexibility: it can be configured to process timesheets and allows managers to decide on the level of controls to be applied in terms of timesheet review and authorisation. It caters for retrospective changes in pay rates, allowing updates to the Job Costing module with revisions to timesheets already processed.

The Benefits

The purpose of the system was to increase efficiency by providing management teams with better management information to make timely and effective decisions.

The Job Costing and Fleet Management applications, together with the linked Job Billing and Time Recording systems, provide an effective means of monitoring, analysing and controlling the various activities which contribute to the success of Tayside Contracts. Key business benefits include:

• Technology to enable business growth by meeting complex job costing and tracking requirements

• Realised very significant time savings, freeing employee resources for higher value tasks

• Value for money reduces costs and improved the organisations bottom line

• Functionality and capacity to support future expansion

• Users have the flexibility to tailor many elements of the Job Costing modules to suit their own individual needs and preferences

• Automated postings to financial ledgers reduces the knowledge of coding structures required by input staff, thus reducing processing errors

• Used in conjunction with Crystal Reports, provides a huge range of analytical management and monitoring information tailored to specific user requirements

• Elimination of double processing, automated reports generation, transfer of data to spreadsheets/documents, scheduled publishing of reports to intranet/individual users

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Salford Royal Foundation NHS Trust

Through organisational changes, Salford Royal Foundation NHS Trust has run Integra for more than 10 years. Most recently, the Trust has implemented the Integra eSeries with the Integra Catalogue Expert (ICE) as part of a complete eProcurement solution. As a result, the Trust has saved money by streamlining order management, virtually eliminated paper and increased accuracy throughout the procurement process.

Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust is a large teaching trust employing over 6000 staff and treating in the region of 400,000 patients per year. The Trust provides a comprehensive range of services to the 230,000 population of Salford as well as a wider range of services across Greater Manchester, the North West and nationally.

On April 1st 2011, it integrated with the community arm of NHS Salford to form a larger organisation providing acute and community services across Salford.

Meeting the eProcurement Challenge

Prior to implementing the Integra eSeries eProcurement system, Salford Royal had a core group of staff in the purchasing and supplies department who received paper requests from other staff around the hospital, which were entered manually as a purchase order.

Some departments that carried out a lot of ordering, such as theatres and pathology, were also given access to the core system to allow them to enter requisitions directly. Diane Morrison, Assistant Director of Finance at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, explains why they needed to change, “Our Trust has developed a programme designed to safely reduce costs without impacting front-line services and patient care. We quickly identified the potential cost savings we could achieve through greater automation, in terms of streamlining processes, removing duplication of effort and generally improving the accuracy and efficiency of our procurement requirement.” Morrison continues, “The manual process of procurement within the hospital was slow and cumbersome. At times approvals were inconsistent and difficult to manage and it took a bit longer than we hoped to deal with urgent queries. This added extra administration layers that we really wanted to remove.”

The Trust is a member of the NHS Shared Business Service Commercial Procurement Solutions (CPS) which enables NHS organisations to benefit from being part of a larger purchasing consortium. The service requires visibility into purchasing at each Trust so it can establish what is being purchased on a routine basis and provide realtime intelligence to help ensure consistent supply. It also links the purchasing requirements of each Trust so that a procurement strategy can be developed to deliver lower purchasing costs and best value across the entire region.

Shared Purchasing Strength

Morrison adds, “The shared service is extremely valuable to us and we wanted to be able to maximise the potential benefit by ensuring a seamless integration of up to date, complete information between our systems.” Both the CPS and Salford Royal use the Global Health Exchange (GHX), a trading exchange which allows hospitals to purchase both medical and non-medical products.

GHX has built an electronic trading exchange where suppliers and providers use a single connection to do business with multiple trading partners. It manages all the trading partner relationships, keeping catalogues up to date and ensuring best prices and supply. A key requirement for a new eProcurement system was to be able to seamlessly update internal systems with information from the GHX catalogues.

“Standardisation and safely reducing costs are our core objective and Capita IB Solutions showed that its Integra eProcurement and Catalogue Expert system would provide us with just that,” says Morrison, adding, “Our products sit on the web-based GHX catalogue system and ICE can download all the information directly so that we can work on the most up to date and accurate purchasing information possible. This integration between GHX and our internal systems also provides the CPS with all the realtime information it needs to deliver an effective service.”

Selection and Implementation

Capita IB Solutions’ continuing developments in the Integra product suite have met with approval from Salford Royal. “Moving to a web based procurement solution has made roll out to both management and requisitioners much more straight forward. The system itself is very easy to use and we are able to select the modules that we want to use and which will deliver the most benefit,” adds Morrison.

Integra eSeries and ICE were implemented during 2010 and by the end of the year paper was virtually eradicated from the purchasing function. With the integration of community services in April, the purchasing team has moved quickly to integrate this large new organisation onto the same eProcurement system and this will be fully up and running very soon.

“We decided to carry out training face to face with our key users. This has paid dividends because people are using the system properly and getting the most out of it. They are also able to train new people more quickly and require less support from the purchasing team. Feedback from the users has been very good, particularly around the system’s reliability and ease of use,” Morrison says.

Increased Efficiencies

Salford Royal is enjoying a number of important benefits from the system. “Eradicating paper from the purchasing process has improved our efficiency. Electronic purchasing has made the process much quicker for the end user and has resulted in much more effective and efficient operations. The system has also given us improved standardisation in terms of the products we purchase. Every time an order is placed for a particular product, it is from the same place so it has a consistent description,” says Morrison.

She adds, “The increased efficiency has allowed us to reduce the amount of administration we need to run the procurement system, which has allowed us to safely reduce costs. The system also provides seamless integration with NHS SBS CPS through GHX, which gives them better visibility of our demand.”

In terms of day to day operations, the Integra eProcurement solution has enabled much greater visibility and control throughout the process.“We can now deliver reports based on accurate and up to date information, which has helped us to make better and more informed decisions on the running of the department. The time taken from order to receipt has also reduced significantly and if there are any issues anywhere in the supply chain, these can be identified and resolved much more quickly and easily than before,” she adds.

Diane Morrison concludes, “We had the challenge of implementing an eProcurement system that would streamline the process and ensure faster and more accurate supply. Thanks to the Integra eProcurement and ICE systems, we have been able to achieve this quickly and effectively. The support from Capita IB Solutions has ensured the project has been successful and we are now enjoying an integrated purchasing system enabling us to safely reduce our costs.”

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Staffordshire Moorlands District Council

With increasing pressure to meet the public sector objectives for reduced costs and improved efficiencies, many District Councils are struggling to implement and support the required level of technology complexity. In December 2007, High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council announced plans to establish a Strategic Alliance under the management of a single, shared Chief Executive and to develop a joint Transformation Programme.

Introduction

The wider project included a shared approach to delivering services, in order to achieve operational savings and efficiencies. The Strategic Alliance is not a merger, as both councils will remain separate legal entities within their respective County boundaries.

April 2009 saw the launch of a shared grounds maintenance service between High Peak Borough Council, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Cheadle Town Council.

The service is one of several to have already emerged from the Strategic Alliance.

Other shared services already up and running include environmental health, a Clean Team for responsive street cleaning, and a single Chief Executive’s Office responsible for functions such as health and safety, communications, policy development and public consultation.

The Requirement

The Transformation Programme aims to review 19 service areas across the two councils, and aims to deliver £1.1m savings from 2010/11 onwards.
The savings will enable both councils to remain financially viable and allow for additional investment in priority areas.

In common with other local authorities, High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council have seen the role of IT transformed over the last decade; technology now plays a fundamental role in meeting targets for efficiency, cost reduction and improved citizen services.

However, like many other District Councils without the budget for significant in-house IT resources, the Strategic Alliance has had to balance the required functionality with cost – both of the initial investment and of ongoing support.

It became obvious from an early stage that both cooperation between and integration of, the two authorities required some standardisation of back office processes and systems. A shared set of financial systems was seen as key in enabling Alliance staff to carry out their responsibilities across both authorities and to enable the development of a combined finance team.

The Solution

In September 2009, agreement was reached between Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Capita IB Solutions to roll out Integra Open Enterprise across the Strategic Alliance.

The application suite was already in use at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, and it was decided to deploy the application both to High Peak Borough Council and High Peak Community Housing.

“The decision to choose Integra in the first place was taken some seven years ago, based on price and performance at the time,” says Bernard Walker, Senior Business Analyst for Staffordshire Moorlands District Council. “Integra has been in use as the primary accounting system at SMDC over that period, and has proven to be a solid, reliable and cost effective accounting system, coupled with Crystal Reports, Integra has delivered the financial control that we require.”
The adoption of a multi-company version of Integra is allowing the development of shared administration, recording and reporting processes, which enables all finance staff to use one set of tools and rules, and provides clients across both authorities with a consistent and shared output.

Multi company also allows separate core financial records to be maintained for both authorities, while all staff can easily access information and process transactions for either. Bernard Walker continues, “High Peak Borough Council also has an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) running its housing stock. The Strategic Alliance offered an opportunity for them to update their financials by adopting Integra and to benefit from having the software hosted and maintained by the local authority. Owing to the separate structure of the ALMO, a separate Integra environment has been adopted. This allows the ALMO to retain total responsibility for the administration, structure and processes applied. In this way the Alliance and the ALMO can share resources and expertise, but the latter retains control over its accounting records.”

The Benefits

The benefits of utilising a single application suite using a common Chart of Accounts structure were key to selecting Integra Open Enterprise. The system configuration will enable both organisation-specific and consolidating reporting, as required.

This will enable the councils to focus on joint procurements, streamlining suppliers and improving benchmarking of performance.

The Integra solution included implementation and deployment of the web-based “self-service” module, eSeries, which will also provide the councils with a platform from which to address the wider areas of the government’s efficiency agenda and which will support a strong e-Procurement initiative, in line with government objectives.

The Future

In addition to rationalising their supplier numbers and renegotiating contracts, the Council’s plan to use e-Procurement to further reduce costs, by generating electronic orders to suppliers and steamlining the purchase to pay process.The next phase of the Strategic Alliance will be a move toward centralised financial transactional processing.

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London Ambulance Service

With 3,400 staff, 390 A&E ambulances, 68 stations and a turnover of £119.5m, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) provides an A&E service for the Greater London area, through a service agreement with London’s 16 health authorities. It also provides a patient transport service, covering non-urgent out-patient journeys to hospital.

Introduction

London Ambulance Service is continually under pressure to save money that could be better used for front line services. By working with Capita IB Solutions, the finance department has already made savings and now has access to the financial information that will drive further efficiency gains.

LAS had been using GEAC’s Millennium financial management system for nearly ten years and was in the process of negotiating a contract extension, when the computer bureau responsible for the system withdrew its support, giving a year’s notice.

Martyn Salter, Deputy Director of Finance at London Ambulance Service, said: “At the time, we were replacing our patient transport system, payroll system and fleet system, so we really didn’t want to do the finance system as well, but we were left with no alternative.”

The Requirement

LAS formed a project team, with representatives from the finance and IT departments, and appointed a consultant to help write the specification for a new financial management and e-Procurement system. A series of internal workshops were arranged to give all staff in the finance department a chance to influence the specification.

The consensus was for an in-house client/server solution, fully integrated with drill-down features, a Windows-style user interface and an easy-to-use report writer. From an IT viewpoint, LAS was standardising on the NT platform and had a preference for SQL server technology.

The agreed specification was incorporated into an ITT, which generated 41 enquiries and 11 tender responses. These were whittled down to a shortlist of three, based on a comparison of cost, functionality and fit with LAS’s IT strategy.

The Solution

Following NHS reference site visits and supplier demonstrations against critical transactions, the six members of LAS’s evaluation team went through the pros and cons of the shortlisted systems module by module.

“The vote was unanimous, first time round, for Capita IB Solutions,” said Martyn Salter. “They’re a reputable company with a proven product and a proven track record. Integra is a very intuitive, easy-to-use system, which was more in tune with what we were looking for, and it gave us good value for money.”

Over a five-year operating period, Integra was a marginally more expensive option, but had a better fit against the specification. Martyn Salter says the resultant savings in time afforded by the system justified the higher price.

“Integra had a much better Fixed Assets module than its closest rival,” he said. “We have a total fleet of around 900 vehicles, so it’s particularly important to keep track of our fixed assets. But other aspects, such as the way Integra handles registered invoices that have not been authorised, were also superior.” LAS took a phased approach to implementation. The core phase, which covered General Ledger, Sales Ledger and Purchase Ledger, went live first, followed by Cash Management, Fixed Assets and the e-Procurement modules.

In addition, Capita IB Solutions helped to implement features such as the automatic matching of invoices, the ability to fax remittance advices and the local input of manual cheque requests. LAS also introduced a new journal-upload facility to replace the general ledger interface. This allows journals to be produced on a spreadsheet, so they can be posted to a separate database for validation checks and then posted back to Integra.

The basic system and parameter settings were configured after meetings with the Capita IB Solutions project team and two days of workshops. A prototype system was developed and user training was undertaken, starting with the 30 staff in the finance department. LAS then opened up the system to its 250 budget holders, so they could get answers to basic queries and produce their own financial and budgetary reports.

The Benefits

“Not only is Integra a faster system, it enables us to provide our internal and external customers with a much better and more responsive service,” said Martyn Salter. “With our old system, if you wanted to know what requisition caused an order to be raised, or how it related to an invoice, you could only get so far on the system and then you had to look up paper documentation in files.

Now we can simply drill down online through electronically generated transactions, and this reduces paper and our requirement for storage. Because the system is so well integrated, it will cut our processing cycle by around 50 per cent.”

Enhanced reporting is another bonus. “The reports from our old system were not user- friendly and we had to re-type data to get it into a spreadsheet,” said Martyn Salter. “Now it’s easier to produce reports, and they are much easier to read and digest because the layout and appearance are better. As a result, we’ve significantly improved the quality of information we send to budget holders and the Trust Board.”

Integra has also delivered a tangible financial saving. “We’ve achieved ongoing net savings of £35,000 per annum, predominantly by reducing our bureau charges,” said Martyn Salter. “In conjunction with Integra’s e-Procurement module, our ongoing net savings could rise to around £85,000 per annum.”

Martyn Salter says that when he visited Capita IB Solutions’ NHS reference site, he found the managers were very complimentary about Integra, how it was implemented, the level of support from Capita IB Solutions and the personal relationships they had built up with the project team.

“We’ve had exactly the same experience,” he said. “Capita IB Solutions’ staff have been friendly, approachable, professional and very helpful. They know what they’re doing and if there’s a problem, they’re responsive and they sort it out very quickly.”

The Future

London Ambulance Service is constantly striving to achieve efficiency gains, and Integra will play a part in meeting this objective. “We’re under enormous pressure to deliver substantial savings that can be used for front line services,” said Martyn Salter. “Integra gives us better and quicker financial information with which to manage the service, and that’s a vital ingredient in our quest for greater efficiency.”

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Health Information and Quality Authority

The Health Information and Quality Authority (formerly Irish Health Services Accreditation Board) have the distinction of being the first national health accreditation body worldwide to introduce a web based accreditation process management system.

Introduction

HIQA was set up to enable Health Service Organisations throughout Ireland to evaluate the care and quality of services they provide to their patients/clients by reference to a set of standards validated internationally by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare through their ALPHA Programme.

It is to be hoped and expected that the systematic approach of the Irish Health Services Accreditation Board, utilising standards of excellence, detailed self assessment and independent peer review, in the provision of Accreditation will enhance the level of quality countrywide to the ultimate benefit of overall patient/client care.

The Requirement

HIQA contracted Capita IB Solutions to develop an accreditation system that would enable applicant organisations and surveyors to access and complete self-assessments over the Web.

HIQA saw this as an important step to dismantling the barrier that was the administrative burden previously associated with organisations undergoing the accreditation process.

The Solution

Capita IB Solutions designed and developed a system using Oracle RDBMS as the application database and utilising Java to develop the front end screens for the users.

With the addition of Crystal to provide the reporting capability and Capita IB Solutions’ own Web Portal framework providing the Web access and necessary security features, the system has now been successfully rolled out to the first organisations.

The project from start to ‘go-live’ took approximately six months to complete from project initiation with Waterford Regional Hospital the first Health organisation to roll out the system.

The Benefits

The benefits to IHSAB’s end users, the health service organisations, are dramatically reduced turnaround times in reporting of the status of their accreditation assessments.

Organisations no longer have to send information to IHSAB. Instead they complete their self-assessments via the secure access point on the IHSAB website.
IHSAB surveyors can review the information online without waiting for written copies and visit the organisations very quickly to carry out the independent assessments. Surveyors can then record their assessments on either a laptop or a tablet PC and upload back to IHSAB’s database. Results are therefore available to the health organisations to view online.

A key benefit to the health service organisations is that with quicker results of the accreditation process available to them, they can concentrate on the areas that they feel require attention for further improvement in terms of care and quality of the health services they provide to their patients/clients. The ultimate end user, the public, benefit from an improved health service.

Financially, IHSAB are already realising significant cost savings from the implementation of the system. IHSAB surveyors and administration staff have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of hours involved in the accreditation process due to the move from a manual paper based system to the automated web system.

Also, due to the fact that a large number of the surveyors employed are based internationally the abolition of the need for a paper based system has significantly reduced costs in both secure postage and turnaround time on reports. Capita IB Solutions designed, developed and implemented the IHSAB Web Based Accreditation Process Management System on time and within budget.

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Hartlepool Borough Council

Situated on the north-east coast of England, Hartlepool Borough Council serves a population of 92,200. The Council became a unitary authority in 1996, following the abolition of Cleveland County Council. Hartlepool is one of the country’s best performing local authorities - assessed as a ‘four star’ authority under Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). This is the highest possible rating and was awarded by the Audit Commission for the sixth consecutive year.

Introduction

Streamlining financial systems is a significant challenge for every type of enterprise, in both the private and public sectors. It also offers the opportunity to bring costs under control, improve performance and provide more timely management reporting capabilities to aid better decision-making.

These were among the reasons that first persuaded Hartelpool Borough Council to review the authority’s financial processes and procedures, including replacing the outdated General Ledger and Management Information System with a more flexible, fully integrated accounting function.

The Requirement

Officers at the council reviewed the authority’s financial systems five years ago and concluded that its numerous, disparate systems were a source of major inefficiencies.

“The previously separate job costing system required significant volumes of creditor invoice transactions to be regularly transferred to the core purchase ledger system so that the invoices could be paid,” explains Kevin Johnston, Group Accountant for Financial Services at Hartlepool.

Moreover, the authority’s system could not support electronic transactions, something that clearly would be much more efficient in the longer term.

“We wanted to make savings on administration, and also better equip ourselves to track how money was being spent in order to find further efficiencies,” says Mr Johnston.

The Solution

The authority decided to invest in a new, integrated financial information management system – the Integra Enterprise system by Capita IB Solutions – that also enabled the electronic transmission of all documentation.

The investment has successfully brought together the different systems Hartlepool used to have into a much more integrated whole, explains Mr Johnston.
The authority decided to introduce the new system in phases. First, it installed the core modules, including general ledger, purchase ledger, sales ledger and bank reconciliation.

In the second phase, the job costing, job billing and stock management modules brought together information that had previously been held and processed in separate systems.

The third phase of the project introduced significant new processes into the purchase-to-pay cycle, including webbased ordering and the implementation of Integra eSeries.

Finally, the council added Capita IB Solutions’ Integra ‘Business Intelligence’ module, which allows it to manage its financial data more proactively, in turn giving a better insight into how and where money is being spent and, crucially, a much clearer picture of where it might be possible to make efficiencies.

The Benefits

The result, explains Mr Johnston, is that the authority has benefited from significant savings in the cost of administration. Previously, for example, the administration or finance teams would run budget reports and then send them out to the relevant staff. Now transactions are paperless and, because information is held on one system, it can be sent out in a much more cost-effective way. “This used to take quite a lot of resource – and paper – printing them out, sorting them and sending to the relevant budget holders. This is now a fully automated process,” says Mr Johnston.

Another feature of the system’s report-writing tool is that it automatically e-mails budget holders up-to-date information to their desktops on a monthly basis.
They can then drill down to individual transactions, including scanned copies of documents, so all the information can be accessed from a single report in their inbox.

Previously, they had to sign on to the system and search for information. “Before, there was a lot of maverick spending and it was very difficult to monitor. The new system allowed us to tackle this,” says Mr Johnston.

The new system has also improved decision-making, something Mr Johnston says will be invaluable as Hartlepool strives to identify further efficiencies. “Now, everything can be monitored more easily and non-contracted spending has been reduced,” he adds.

The Future

Beyond its more immediate benefits, the performance, reliability and scalability of Integra Enterprise gives the Council an opportunity to replace its disparate software applications and information systems with a single, integrated solution, at its own pace.

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Essex Shared Services Agency

Essex Shared Services Agency (ESSA) is one of the leading Shared Services Centres in the country. It employs 70 people and provides specialist financial and accounting support, transaction processing and help desk facilities for health sector organisations in Essex.

Introduction

Essex Shared Services Agencys’ (ESSA) customer base is made up of 12 organisations including Acute Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts, Community Trusts and other Specialist Trusts such as the Essex Ambulance Service.

ESSA enables its customers to focus on their core business of providing patient care through the provision of outsourced finance and accounting management by its dedicated team of experts.

It adds value by giving customers access to a range of specialist financial skills and advanced technology that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible.

The Requirement

When Essex Shared Services Agency was launched, it needed to deploy an enterprise-wide financials solution that would help it to streamline the way in which its services were delivered.

These needed to maximise reporting capabilities and information dissemination, meet e-government objectives, set standards for customer service and ensure processes were as efficient as possible.

A high-functionality, low-maintenance system was required in order to meet these needs and comply with demanding Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with its customers.

The Solution

ESSA chose Capita IB Solutions, the provider of software and services to the health and public sectors, to provide its financial solution, Integra, based on several key criteria. Firstly, Capita IB Solutions was able to demonstrate an understanding of the demands of the health sector, including compliance with e-government objectives; secondly, the functionality and high integration capabilities of Integra were the best on the market; and thirdly, it was a proven, cost-effective solution.

For the initial launch, Capita IB Solutions provided a financial solution comprising the following Integra modules: purchase ledger, sales ledger, general ledger, purchase ordering, cash management and fixed assets. The solution was underpinned with an Oracle Database, and the hardware was provided in conjunction with Capita IB Solutions.

The hardware platform has been expanded and upgraded since the initial implementation, in line with the expansion of service provision by Essex Shared Services Agency. Capita IB Solutions has continued to play a significant role in assisting the Agency with the technical infrastructure through provision of a Managed Service.

Through this service, Capita IB Solutions has assisted with the management of the database environment, the operating system, the Citrix environment and elements of the application software as defined within a Service Operating Schedule and Service Level Agreement agreed with the Agency each year. There are currently approximately 450 users of the system across Essex.

The Benefits

The Capita IB Solutions’ financial solution means that ESSA now has one integrated system rather than a plethora of silo systems. Tasks and reports on the status of finances and accounting can be completed in minutes.

Sally Thornton, Director of Finance at Essex Shared Services Agency, comments: “Adopting standardised processes and a single system means that we can easily access most documentation. We can provide our customers with real-time information and status reports on any aspect of their enterprise at any time - in a matter of seconds.

“We’ve now converted all of our users to the system and have moved into what we term a development phase, in order to draw out more functionality. We are now gradually utilising more and more of the system’s capabilities, and in the next 12 months we’re hoping to deploy extra modules such as stock management. The ultimate goal is to create an almost paperless environment.

“During the past twelve months, as initiation of the development phase, the Agency has introduced the Integra Fleet Management Module to monitor usage of the ambulance fleet, a Catalogue Management Application to streamline the purchase-to-pay cycle, and a document imaging solution provided by Capita IB Solutions in partnership with SoftCo.“

Ongoing activity will see the introduction of web based requisitioning for end users of the application, the introduction of Integra workflow and the provision of access to a range of detailed budgetary control reports to relevant managers. Essex Shared Services Agency is now starting to see dramatic increases in productivity; for example, functions such as monthly reports that would otherwise take several days, now take a matter of minutes.

The team now has more time to focus on servicing its customers better, implementing new ideas and keeping pace with the e-government agenda. The number of on-line users of the financial system has more than doubled in two years.

Sally comments: “Since we made the decision to use Capita IB Solutions financial and procurement system, Integra, the team at Capita IB Solutions has proved invaluable. From day one their consultants have been excellent and they’ve always offered high levels of support. They are very responsive, and this has meant that we’ve derived maximum value from the system.“

According to its auditors, part of the reason that Essex Shared Services Agency has become one of the country’s leading Shared Services Agencies is through its adoption of such a sophisticated financials solution, backed by standardised financial procedures and structures.

Sally concludes: “There is so much flux in the health sector at the moment, and organisations cannot afford to take their eye off the ball and spend large quantities of time on administrative functions such as accounting. With the help of Capita IB Solutions, we are helping the NHS to streamline processes, meet e-government objectives and ultimately improve the delivery of patient care.“

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Birmingham Specialist Community Services NHS Trust

With over 100 sites, 4,400 employees and £115m turnover, Birmingham Specialist Community Services NHS Trust is a large and impressive organisation. Formed from the merger of Southern and Northern Birmingham Community Health NHS Trusts, it delivers consistent, accessible, high quality and clinically effective services for a population of 1.1 million people.

Introduction

Having selected Integra from Capita IB Solutions as its preferred financial management system, the Community Health NHS Trust is pressing ahead with an innovative purchasing strategy. “The merger was a natural step,” said David Coley, the new Trust’s Head of Procurement. “It seemed logical that a single organisation should provide a Birmingham-wide service.”

To facilitate effective financial management and the purchase of 70,000 requisition lines per annum, the new Trust is rolling out Integra, from Capita IB Solutions, across the entire organisation, which includes general ledger, purchase ledger and purchase order processing modules.

The Requirement

“Prior to the merger, we had an independent audit of the two financial management systems used by two former Trusts and the benefits of Integra far outweighed those of the other system,” said David Coley.

“Southern Birmingham was a mixed acute Trust formed from 10 directly-managed units, each of which had developed their own management accounting systems and procedures,” he said. “Following a competitive process, it introduced Integra to give a standardised means of procuring goods, transmitting commitments and registering invoices.”

David Coley - who was Purchasing Manager of Southern Birmingham - says that during the initial competitive process, it was quite obvious that Integra was the best system.

“Integra has lots of functionality, excellent reporting and audit tools and it helps you order goods quickly, efficiently and effectively,” he said. “It also enables you to make more intelligent decisions because it generates high quality, timely and relevant information. Integra is a tried and tested system that is embedded into the health service culture and psyche. Talk financial management in the health service and you’re talking Capita IB Solutions. They’ve got a phenomenal market share and a great reputation.”

The Solution

After the initial implementation, Southern Birmingham used Integra to redefine its entire purchasing methodology. The Trust catalogued its products and generated some pretty focused data by tracking what people ordered, when they ordered, who they ordered from and what they did with the products.
“An electronic catalogue, with online access, is simply a different way of thinking about data and managing the process,” said David Coley. “If 80 per cent of your products have to be re-ordered regularly, you can substantially cut the data input time by creating a product catalogue and pre-negotiating your prices with suppliers. Thereafter, people can simply place orders as the needs dictate.”

The system provided a step change in the efficiency of Southern Birmingham’s procurement. “We were putting 15,000 orders a year through Integra,” said David Coley. “High volumes are usually synonymous with human error and complaints but they just didn’t happen here. Now I don’t understand how anyone can say they have a procurement strategy in place if they haven’t got an electronic way of managing the data.”

After four years of tracking his prices with Integra, David Coley has a strong negotiating position for the new Trust’s 1,200 key products.

“Integra moves the way you operate to a different strata because you’re not scratching around for information,” he said. “It lets you control the way you broker your spend on the marketplace and be more scientific about the prices you pay for goods. You can also benchmark your activity and compare your prices against other healthcare trusts as well as private sector companies.”

He adds that the marketplace responds to a clear, precise offer document as opposed to something vague and full of obvious wish lists and estimates.
“If you are very specific,” he said, “it sends a clear signal to your suppliers and it enables you to negotiate in a scientific way. It also gives you room to test out some strategic sourcing models where you’re not just putting a document out in the marketplace and saying give me your best price for the next two years based on X and Y.”

David Coley believes that rolling out Integra across the whole of the new Trust will be a relatively straightforward process.

“We’ve got space on the ledger to add in Northern Birmingham’s accounting codes,” he said. “The next step is to link the networks of the two former Trusts. Then we’ll create around 400 requisition points in various parts of the city.

Once these are linked up, we’ll run a pretty extensive training programme for discrete sites or departments in turn. Because we’ve been using Integra for some years now in Southern Birmingham, we’ve developed a very effective process of implementation training.”

The Benefits

The resultant savings are likely to be substantial. “We’re anticipating continued annual savings of around £200 to £300,000 per annum with Integra’s help,” said David Coley. “If you haven’t got an electronic system, you probably have the potential for around an 18% overall cost reduction.

On some product ranges we’ve already cut 40% off prices but in others, we we’re tinkering at the margins. It won’t apply uniformly because different supply chains have different functionality and different profit margins - you don’t buy stationery in the same way you buy theatre consumables.”

Savings can also accrue from cutting down on stockpiling. “If staff don’t have confidence in the supply chain, they’ll tend to stockpile their essential items rather than risk running out,” he said. “Integra allows people to order with confidence because when they press Enter, they know the order has been issued.
They don’t have to worry about it going astray because of some ridiculous bureaucratic procedure where someone 15 miles away processes it for them.”

The Future

By getting the right products to the right places at the right time, the new Trust’s catalogue-driven procurement approach and the management information generated by the Integra system - will help ensure that integrated, high quality community health services are delivered to the entire city of Birmingham.

“The client server version of Integra gives you beautiful functionality that lets you calendar in your reports and e-mail them out at different times,” said David Coley. “You just set it up once a year and you know its going to be done. Its a superb way of working which takes all the hassle out.”

David Coley believes Birmingham Specialist Community Services NHS Trust will gain future price reductions by differentiating the way that it operates.
“Internet trading and embedded web browsers are the way forward for procurement,” he said. “But in an organisation of this size, with this many locations, you’ve got start by getting the paper out of the system.

If you can order efficiently using an electronic catalogue with auto-faxing, the emphasis is then on the supplier to respond and justify their delivery claims. In effect, you can start to push back and manage your supply base a lot more proactively.”

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Mole Valley District Council, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust & Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust

Budgets are coming under scrutiny across the public sector. The pressure is on to make cuts wherever possible. This is driving many organisations within the NHS and local authorities to look at advanced, integrated budgetary control management systems to ensure they cut costs without impacting service.

Budgeting with Confidence

For most people, budgeting means spreadsheets, and within large public sector organisations this can mean HUNDREDS of spreadsheets all sitting outside of the core financial systems.

Pulling all these spreadsheets together into a meaningful budget report is time consuming, massively prone to error, and provides very little scope to make the effective decisions needed to cut costs while maintaining service.

The Integra Budgeting and Forecasting module provides a fully-integrated solution that gives organisations control, visibility and a high level of flexibility for spending and financial planning.

Through every step of the budgeting process, the module creates seamless workflows to facilitate greater accuracy and faster resolution.
All budgets are integrated into a single application, created either by direct interface with appropriate systems, such as payroll, or by authorised personnel using up-to-date and accurate data.

For example, the module allows for easy generation of a Payroll Budget for the year, using individual employees’ details imported seamlessly from the payroll system and including data on Whole Time Equivalents, Allowances and Split Roles.

It also carries out calculations based on up-to-date Pay Scales and Pay Points, as well as Employers’ Pension and National Insurance Contribution.
The Budgeting and Forecasting module provides several functions that save time and reduce errors by minimising repetitive tasks.

It automatically imports and maintains key cost drivers for the apportionment and allocation of budget data, which allows fixed costs to be spread across multiple budgets. Preset workflow procedures allow for the easy flow of budgets through the various stages of budget preparation, approvals and continual monitoring processes.

Integra Budgeting in Action

Like many public sector organisations, Mole Valley District Council used Excel spreadsheets held on network drives accessible by managers and accountants onto which data from the accountancy system was downloaded each night.

Brian Stuart explains, “Our previous setup was quite unreliable because the overnight interface between the spreadsheet and the accountancy system would periodically fail. There were also file usage conflicts because there was only one Excel file for each council service, despite several managers holding budgets within any one service.”

The budgeting module was installed at Mole Valley DC in 2010, and has quickly made a positive difference to how budgets are managed, monitored and controlled. Brian adds, “Managers and accountants use the budget module system for day-to-day enquires on spend against budgets, as well as for the quarterly monitoring process. This allows us to easily generate formal committee reports on budget variances and enables more accurate end of year projections.”

He continues, “One of the key benefits of the budget module is its authorisation workflow, which means that during the quarterly monitoring process any projections and variance explanations given by managers are automatically sent for review to their own manager, and so on up the chain of management.
“Any reviewer can reject projections and comments and send the budget monitoring back for redoing. This saves accountants time in making sure that all levels of management have reviewed any projections and comments. It also saves the head of service time when he/she is writing their quarterly monitoring report, because they can see whose budget projections still haven’t been submitted to them and they can view who and when any changes have been made to the projections and comments.”

The module is also flexible enough to adapt to specific operations and requirements. “We have incorporated a projects section into the budget module so that managers can report on projects they are undertaking.

“This gives us even greater insight into each project, allowing us to make more informed decisions on budget allocations and projected spend,” concludes Brian Stuart.

Suited to the NHS

West Hertfordshire NHS Trust recently implemented the Integra Budgeting and Forecasting module having previously used an alternative system.
Satish Kumar from the Trust comments, “Having a budgeting system that is properly integrated with our financial systems has made a huge difference to the speed with which we can put budgets together and the overall accuracy of them. Our previous system caused a lot of frustration for users, because every change took a long time to calculate. With Integra, data is pulled in seamlessly and complex calculations take an instant.”

He continues, “As soon as the software contained the functionality we required, we agreed to implement it. It was installed as part of our complete Managed Services solution in December 2010, and took just two weeks to be fully live, with users trained and up and running. Since then the system has worked well and has been very reliable.”

One of the biggest advantages for West Herts NHS is the integration between the budgeting module and the core Integra financial ledgers.

“Users can draw information directly from Integra, set the figures in the budgeting module and then upload straight back into Integra for reporting. This is much more straightforward than when we had a separate system, because we always had to make sure that the right data was entered into both systems. The new module ensures we are always working with up-to-date and accurate data, transferred seamlessly from the core finance and HR systems,” says Satish.

He concludes, “The system allows us to very quickly compare the budgets with actual spend as the year progresses, making it easy to see where improvements are possible. Also, the performance is brilliant, which means the users are much happier. The feedback from users is very positive because the system is so easy to use. Accurate reports are generated at the touch of a button, and this helps us to make better decisions to help us meet our core objectives of cutting costs without impinging on our patient care services.”

At North Devon Healthcare NHS Trust, Integra has been the finance management system for more than 15 years. The Trust installed the Budgeting and Forecasting module in 2009, to replace a manual system based on Excel spreadsheets.

Nina Phillips from the Trust explains, “Managing group wide budgeting with spreadsheets was a difficult and time consuming task. The spreadsheets themselves can get corrupted very easily, with formulas getting messed up and incorrect data being produced.”

She continues, “In our Trust we start with staff costs. The Integra Budgeting system provides an interface with the ESR payroll and HR system, which holds all the relevant staff payment information . Data from ESR is manipulated and imported directly into the budgeting module, giving us an accurate base to work from. 75% of our budget costs are staff costs, and before, we run reports from ESR and download this information into each individual spreadsheet for each budget centre. This was both time-consuming and strewn with potential errors. Non-pay costs can be uploaded from existing data sets from Integra using various formulae. Here in North Devon we tend to use a rolling 12 month period as a base for our costs.”

North Devon also benefits from the streamlined workflow enabled by the system. “The Budgeting module gives us a robust audit trail of comments and authorisations for each strand of the budget. Once all budgets are ready, they can be uploaded to the General ledger at the press of a button. It is a great tool that has made the whole process much more accurate and far less cumbersome. Users are delighted, and both accountants and managers feel much more confident and in control of the budgets,” concludes Nina Phillips.

Features

• Easy upload to Integra General Ledger
• Full audit for all budget amendments
• Payroll budget setting and modelling
• Upload of third-party budgeting data
• Web-based approval and enquiry screens
• ”What-if” scenario modelling and forecasting

Business Benefits

• Increased accuracy
• Time saved
• Centralised control
• Effective collaboration
• Greater visibility of processes
• Faster, more accurate reporting
• Better decision making
• Streamlined information gathering

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University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust

Based in the heart of North Staffordshire, the University Hospital of North Staffordshire is the main provider of emergency and acute hospital services, and serves a population of half a million in Stoke-On-Trent, Newcastle-Under-Lyme and the Staffordshire Moorlands. The Trust also provides specialist services for the surrounding areas of Staffordshire, Cheshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire and Wales.

Higher Intelligence, Better Purchasing

In the drive to minimise expenditure while maintaining service, the NHS faces some big challenges.

A massive area for potential efficiency gains is in eProcurement, where the implementation of integrated, web-based purchasing systems can generate huge savings in both time and cost.

These systems can also be used in conjunction with advanced Business Intelligence tools to enable better decision making, based on accurate, real-time data.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust (UHNS) is enjoying these benefits by extending its Integra Financials and eSeries implementation to include the Integra eSeries e-Requisitioning system and Integra Business Intelligence (IBI).

The Supplies and Procurement (S&P) Department of UHNS provides procurement and systems support to five organisations, including the main University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust, the North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, North Staffordshire PCT and Stoke-on-Trent PCT.

In terms of non-stock products (lines not available via NHS Supply Chain), the department raises around 33,500 order lines, with an annual spend of around £68million.

This covers just about anything used in the hospitals, from medical equipment and stationery through to uniforms and cleaning products.

Streamlining Processes with P2P

In order to increase efficiency and lower the costs associated with purchasing, the UHNS S&P team recently rolled out Integra eSeries and Integra Purchase to Pay to enable seamless eProcurement across all its organisations.

Gareth Baddley from the UHNS S&P Systems Department says, “As a result, everything we order, in terms of non-stock lines, is now requested electronically and processed through the Integra web basket. In just a few months, the group has achieved electronic processing for 92.7% of all requisitions, with more than 400 requisition access points and over 550 live requisitioners across the organisations. This has been a great achievement and has resulted in time and cost savings across the group. For example, enabling online internal order authorisations has saved over 25,000 sheets of paper per annum.”

The S&P team is now focused on increasing the percentage of electronic requisitions even further. “Being on a split site means that people are very highly motivated to enable online authorisations,” says Gareth, adding, “It was not unknown for people to have to get the bus from one site to another simply to get a purchase order signed off.

“As everyone’s roles become busier, an application like this that makes their job easier is exactly what they want. It has also given managers much better control over their authorisations. They can access everything that is waiting on them at an appropriate time, and they can use the other integrated systems and Business Intelligence reports to make better and more informed decisions about purchases.”

eProcurement also enables the UHNS S&P team to be better prepared when negotiating costs with suppliers. “It is now very easy to get key information out of the system covering expected demand and potential peaks and troughs. We can then use this information to get the best deal possible from suppliers,” explains Gareth.

Improving with Intelligence

UHNS has also recently implemented Integra Business Intelligence (IBI), and Gareth has worked extensively with the system to enable rapid and positive benefits. “Before we implemented IBI, we were getting constant requests for reports and other procurement related information.

“This meant that we had a multitude of tailored reports created for specific requirements without ever providing exactly what each person required. IBI has given people the ability to obtain this information themselves, quickly, easily and accurately.

“IBI provides the master report, and it is very easy for people to take this and add the specific information they are looking for. This has saved a lot of time, both for our department and for the people requesting reports. It means they have the information to hand when they need it, and allows them to act upon it promptly and with more certainty of the timeliness and accuracy of the information.”

The group has also benefited from the extensive use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Gareth explains, “The KPIs provide an easy-to-access and easy-to-interpret snapshot of what we are achieving as an organisation.

“We use them to monitor progress of all kinds of activities and can generate answers to key questions, such as how many people are using eRequisitions, in seconds. The system also allows us to drill down into the graphics within the KPI dashboard, so we can see immediately where the information is coming from and act on it accordingly.”

Saving Time

Gareth is delighted that IBI is used extensively across the organisation. “The finance departments in each of the trusts are using the BI tool, and all the people in the procurement team have access to it for spend reports and anything else they need.

“It is a powerful tool that gives us a graphical representation of key areas of financial and procurement operation, which makes everyone’s jobs easier and more effective. It gives people the power to make better decisions, and this has been appreciated across all the trusts.”

He continues, “As part of the overall eSeries system, IBI is fully integrated with the entire Integra Financials solution. Its greatest benefit to us is the huge amount of time it saves people who are trying to get the right information they need from the system.

“It makes the task of gathering data and monitoring progress far more efficient, and allows people to display and distribute information much more professionally. An integrated, accurate and real-time graphical report is much better than an isolated spreadsheet, which is probably out-of-date before it is even sent.”

In addition to time saving, IBI provides the trust with other important benefits. The greater data integrity and accurate transactional history information enables more accurate forecasting, which leads to better inventory management. It also serves as an important management tool, enabling the trust to measure performance of individuals, teams and departments.

Future Plans

Gareth Baddley says, “Meeting the purchasing demands of the trusts is a continuous, complex and demanding task. Integra, with its range of integrated financial solutions, goes a long way to helping us deliver a first class service to the group.

“The new P2P process and IBI application have added a new dimension in terms of efficiency and cost savings, and we look forward to extending the systems as new trusts come on board.“

He concludes, “We work in partnership with Capita IB Solutions, and the knowledge, experience and support of their consultants is invaluable in allowing us to achieve our objectives. We aim to support our own customers as effectively as possible, and Integra gives us the products and services to help us make this happen.”

Benefits

• 92.7% (and rising) electronic purchasing requisitions
• Saving 25,000 sheets of paper per annum
• Fast and timely order authorisation
• Seamless integration with core financial systems
• Increased data integrity
• Fast, accurate reporting enables better decision making
• Support team released from handling day-to-day reporting requirements
• Graphical dashboard for KPIs enables full process visibility
• Improved inventory management and forecasting
• Enables better price negotiations with suppliers

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West Hertfordshire NHS Trust

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust enjoys a rare luxury with its financial management and procurement systems. Since 2003, all the hardware, maintenance, networking and security requirements have been provided by Capita IB Solutions in a comprehensive and cost-effective Managed Services solution. This has provided a host of time and cost savings benefits, including reduced capital expenditure, and has removed the need for specialist IT hardware resources on site.

Focus on Managed Services at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust was formed in April 2000 with the merger of hospitals in Watford, St. Albans and Hemel Hempstead.
It has more than 4,000 members of staff and serves a catchment area of around 500,000 people.

In 2003, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust updated its systems to incorporate the new Client/Server version of Integra, as well as the Integra eProcurement system, eSeries.

Managing Efficiency

The hardware infrastructure for this update was hosted by Capita IB Solutions from its data centre in Prestwich, and this has set the pattern for the Trust’s ongoing IT strategy.

Satish Kumar from the Trust explains, “Right from the start we wanted to focus on the software and how this could best support what we needed to do. We are finance people rather than IT, and we didn’t want to have to house, install, maintain and support the whole client/server infrastructure if there was a reliable, secure and cost-effective alternative.”

The Trust has around 60 users of the full Integra system and a further 20 procurement users operating the system on a client/server basis. With the addition of a web browser interface, anyone can now enter the system, with secure access, to carry out a purchasing requisition or enquiry.

“We manage this access centrally, operating as a help desk for our users,” says Satish, adding, “All users have their own secure login, and this gives them access to the areas of the system that they are authorised for. For further security, we set these passwords to expire after 90 days. We now have around 500 people who can access the eProcurement system via the web interface, and we are able to manage the 100,000+ orders per year comfortably.”

Managing eProcurement

West Hertfordshire hospitals NHS Trust is part of the Hertfordshire Supply Management Confederation (HSMC), which provides a centralised operational buying team for transactional procurement for the NHS in Hertfordshire. This service provides greater buying power for the region, reducing costs and generating consistency across the NHS in Herts. Satish explains, “The HSMC’s catalogues need to integrate with the eProcurement systems within the Trusts it supports. We manage our own catalogues locally, and these are updated seamlessly by HSMC so we always have the right prices and the right, consistent information.”

When going live with the Integra eProcurement system in 2006, the Trust had a target to eliminate paper-based orders within two years. This has mainly been achieved and has generated significant benefits for the Trust. “The turnaround time for orders has improved dramatically. One of the key areas is in the approval process, which is built into the workflow of the order or requisition. It means that managers can give approval online, querying or escalating where necessary, but achieving this in a much more efficient and timely manner. Once approved, orders are automatically passed on to the finance department and then to the supplier. It is a fast, accurate system that has revolutionised purchasing throughout the Trust,” says Satish.

He continues, “The system has also improved our reporting capabilities because it provides complete visibility of accurate, up-to-date information throughout the purchasing supply chain. With the right approval, people can go into the system and see the precise status of their orders. Managers can also pull out key reports to help them make better decisions based on relevant and correct data. ESeries provides more intelligent purchasing, and its ease of use means that end user support and satisfaction has been very high.”

Managing the Infrastructure

Earlier in 2011, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust agreed a three-year extension to its Managed Services contract with Capita IB Solutions. This covers all the accounting ledgers as well as eProcurement, Invoice Approval, Budgeting and Forecasting, Web Reporting and enquires. As part of the new contract, the Trust has added Business Intelligence and Optical Character Recognition to its portfolio.

“The OCR system allows us to scan paper invoices and integrate the information on them into the core finance system. This is helping to reduce administration time, as well as creating a more streamlined process for accounts payable. We have a target to reduce expenditure by £50million this year, and applications like this are helping us to achieve this without impacting on our core frontline services,” says Satish.

The BI system enables online reporting so that authorised managers can access reports via the web. “Previously, these reports had to be sent by email or post and has led to faster decision making, based on accurate data that can be held for as long as is required. Previously, everything needed to be printed and copies retained to help with reporting. Now it’s all to hand, which makes the whole process much more efficient and cost-effective,” he says.

The Managed Service allows the Trust to focus on developing the system and optimising it to ensure maximum benefit. Satish Kumar says, “Thanks to the contract we have in place, we can focus all our efforts on our operations without having to worry about the hardware. We know that all updates, patches, technical issues, security and disaster recovery are handled by Capita IB Solutions’ team, far more effectively than we could manage them ourselves. The process has always been very reliable, and we enjoy a fast, secure connection to our servers at all times. Updates are carried out over the weekend so they don’t affect our operations.”

He concludes, “Integra has a very user-friendly system interface, which means users are up and running with the software very quickly. We have been able to integrate the system with other applications, such as the Pharmacy and NHS Logistics systems, so that we can handle their transactions quickly and efficiently. The Managed Services contract allows my department to focus on keeping users happy and also on developing the reporting side of the system. It is a comforting feeling to know that everything is in safe hands.”

About Capita IB Solutions’ Managed Services

Capita IB Solutions provides a cost-effective model for supporting financial applications, and brings together its financial management expertise and vast experience in application support to offer an efficient managed service model.

It enables application support through a shared resource pool, so clients can be assured of much higher productivity, flexibility and access to best practices.

Fast Facts

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust consists of:

• Watford General Hospital
• Hemel Hempstead Hospital
• St. Albans City Hospital
- 4,000 staff members
- 60,000+ invoices per annum
- 100,000+ orders per annum

Benefits of Managed Services

• Low capital expenditure
• Controlled fixed costs
• 100% availability
• Disaster recovery in place
• High security
• Updates and patch fixes
• Seamless integration with partner systems
• No hardware support resource required
• Fast access to new applications/modules
• Support team focused on operations
• Regular service management review meetings

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English Heritage Financial Information Systems - Upgrade Project

The Financial Information System (FIS) is English Heritage’s main tool for financial management. The main objective of the FIS upgrade is to enable the provision of information directly to budget managers and finance teams in simple formats, whilst saving time through streamlined processes. The upgrade fully supports the modernisation agenda within the organisation.

English Heritage has signed a four-year contract with iSOFT Business Solutions for the supply and support of the Integra suite of financial accounting software, bespoke and e-procurement solutions. The contract includes deliverables to enable implementation of streamlined business accounting processes. The application suite will support 125 concurrent users with the English Heritage headquarters and Regional Offices. The project includes:

Integra e-Series
This suite of “Self Service” applications promotes devolvement of processes such as Ordering, purchase and sales ledger enquiries. The application is provided across the web and is utilised to re-engineer business processes in respect of the purchase to pay cycle in particular.

Integra Attachment Manager
iSOFT Business Solutions implemented an integrated document imaging solution to meet the specific need of the organisation. One of the main objectives of English Heritage is to replace the traditional paper chase for purchase ledger invoices.

Workflow and Invoice Approval
To support the use of Attachment Manager they have introduced Integra Workflow and Invoice Approval. This will provide for increased efficiencies in business process throughout the finance and buying community.

Quick Address Software
Links to a third party application to enable address and post code validation are also included as part of the overall solution. This speeds up the process of creating new supplier and customer records as well as providing increased accuracy of standing data.

Background
The project to modernise the FIS was sub-divided into a number of phases.

• Phase 1
The first phase in the process was to upgrade to the very latest versions of Integra on an oracle platform. In parallel with this exercise a detailed review of existing working practices and processes was taking place within the organisation. It was important to understand how things were being done and why, before subsequent phases could be progressed.

• Phase 2
The project was to provide a modern Business Accounting & Finance System to improve business processes. The new windows based system presents a modern, friendly interface to users by employing up to date technologies. In turn, this has given the organisation the opportunity to contribute to the modernisation agenda by re-engineering processes and improving the financial information available to
managers. The Integra financial system allows us to work towards meeting nationally agreed e-government targets and requirements.

• Phase 3
The third phase of the project was to introduce efficiencies into the finance and buying functions and roll out the system to managers and buyers. The use of the system technologies allows English Heritage to reengineer processes and drive the business forward. This phase also includes the first usage of Finance web based software by the organisation and the implementation of English Heritage’s first ever Management Information System.

Process Re-Engineering
English Heritage are scanning and electronically storing all their purchase ledger invoices. As well as providing an excellent information source, it allows invoices to be sent for approval electronically. This process, known as Invoice Approval has been the subject of a pilot with the Policy and Communication Group. This will be used throughout the organisation with the objective of full deployment during 2005.

In a change to existing policy buyers can now choose if Purchase Orders under £10,000 need independent Goods Receipting. This is likely to eradicate 85% of data entry in this area and result in significant improvements in process efficiency.

During the next year English Heritage plan to be making web based payments and implementing their first electronic trading for orders and remittances.

Use of Visa Purchasing Cards has increased to nearly 600 with over 37% of transactions now made through the cards. Inputs of Orders and Payments are being consolidated into centres of excellence to improve efficiency in real terms and as measured against industry benchmarks.

These changes are bringing efficiency and ease of use improvements to the Operational Managers and Finance Teams; benefits in reducing administrative time have already been realised and more will follow. Information and processes are becoming modern and free of all but essential bureaucracy.

Expanding the use of the System
The latest version of Integra is in use in all Finance Departments and Regions, Forty-four brand new users have been trained to use the system for information and reconciliation purposes.

One Hundred and Twenty five new users in total will be trained in 2005, they are non Finance corporate managers. They will be able to get financial information in printed and Excel formats, run supplier enquiries and look at invoices on line.

Key buyers are permitted to raise their own orders as a result of a pilot with Swindon IT staff and IT project managers.

Once the pilot areas are completed the functionality will be rolled to non-IT project managers and all major buyers. This important reform will eliminate the need to handle all orders twice, once by the buyer and once by an administrative person, it will allow buyers to place orders quickly and efficiently using e-series software.

Management Information
English Heritage has successfully implemented new operating statements using Crystal Reports. In 2005 they will implement a modern database system consisting of a multi dimensional database and reporting system.

This system will be used for more flexible and timely budgeting and forecasting by Managers and Finance Teams. It will also be used to alert managers to problems in spending or trends in data, such as visitor numbers or staffing. The first phase, due for June 2005 will see Finance and HR data combined for the first time along with key performance indicators. Ultimately English Heritage will have available a true, corporate management information system combing multiple databases from multiple applications.