School Purchase Order System
The situation:
The auditors of this boarding school had suggested a Purchase Order (PO) system for many years in their annual audit report. The school used Synergetic as their school management and financial system, but no one at the school had the time or the expertise to implement the PO module.
Purchase Orders at the school were inconsistently used, and relied on a manual paper-based system which often delayed the processing and payment of creditor invoices.
Budget holders at the School knew of their annual budgets, but monthly cost centre reports were manually prepared by the Accountant and distributed to the budget holders
The Solution:
Precision successfully set up and implemented the Synergetic PO module at the school. This required adapting the school’s financial policies to the Synergetic PO module set up, and documenting how the system works for all users of the system.
The PO System in Synergetic and SynWeb was tested and custom Crystal Reports for new PO templates were developed.
Customised procedures, checklists and FAQs were prepared for PO Requisitions, Budget Holders, Accounts Payable and IT. Staff were supported through the staged roll-out at the school to ensure a smooth transition to the new system.
The Precision MA Results:
- The auditors are impressed there is a robust electronic PO system in place at the school.
- Budget holders can access information on what has been committed and spent of their total annual budget at any time, not just at end of month.
- Accounts Payable is processing creditor invoices faster, as invoices are pre-coded through the PO system.
- School financial policies, such as the Delegations Of Authority are enforced through the electronic Synergetic PO system.
There is 100% compliance by all staff on the schools purchasing policies
SCHOOL FINANCE TEAM REQUIRING ACCOUNTING SUPPORT
THE SITUATION
This small but growing school used PCSchool and contacted Precision early in the year for help with accounting support and training. The school was being audited in the following month and there was a completely new finance team who needed guidance and support with end of year processes and preparing for the new school year.
THE SOLUTION
Precision used their extensive school experience to help finalise the December financial statements and prepared all supporting documentation for the auditors.
Time was spent with the finance staff explaining and documenting how to complete key financial processes and tasks in PCSchool.
Precision worked with the school to incorporate the annual budget into PCSchool to provide automatic financial Board Reports.
THE PRECISION MA RESULTS
- There were $0 audit adjustments made to the December year end result, showing that Precision prepared accurate financial information.
- There are documented procedures on how to process infrequent financial tasks, such as debtor billing and refunds etc
- Staff now have a detailed End of Month checklist with timings for Debtors, Creditors, Payroll, General Ledger. The checklist includes reports and supporting documents that should be obtained and reviewed for internal cross checks.
- The finance team is working independently and only call upon Precision if they have any questions or require complex accounting support.
Financial information is up to date and the team are working independently and in real time.
physiotherapy business operating in the dark
The situation:
This busy physiotherapy practice had been running for 8 years but the two directors felt they were operating in the dark as they did not know how much profit (or loss) they were making during the week/month/year.
They were using desktop version of MYOB and a separate patient booking system and had no internal controls around patient payments.
Weekly reporting was manually generated by the Practice Manager in Excel, but did not give an indication of the financial performance of the practice.
Physiotherapist were paid a commission on their billing, and the Director spent up to 4 hours completing complex payroll each fortnight.
Bank reconciliations were only completed at the end of the month when the hardcopy bank statement was received. The MYOB file was only updated at the end of every month as part of the bank reconciliation.
The solution:
Precision set up and implemented ReceiptBank to automate invoice and expense receipt entry for the Practice Manager and 2 Directors.
Precision set up and implemented Xero, including:
Developing a new and meaningful chart of accounts that broke up the different revenue streams and expense types.
Setting up Payroll categories and employee pay templates to easily calculate physiotherapist commission payments
Setting up bank feeds and bank rules to automate transactions
Developed a Finance Manual to be used for staff training and documenting corporate knowledge, including flowcharts, procedures and checklists. Precision provided hands on support to staff during the transition period.
Prepared a budget so actual financial information could be compared to budget so the Directors knew if they were on track to achieve their planned profit for the year.
The precision ma results:
- Improved internal controls and cross- checks to prevented mistakes and fraud giving the directors confidence that their business was safe.
- Bookkeeping and data entries could be completed on a daily/ weekly basis.
- Softcopy source documents are maintained in both Xero and ReceiptBank so there was 100% transparency and accountability between the Directors and the Practice Manager.
- Instant financial information was available to the Directors daily direct from Xero eliminating the 2 hours each week to prepare manual reports in excel.
Processing payroll reduced from 4 hours to 0.5 hours per fortnight!
Bookkeeping data entry reduced by more than half!
Food & Beverage Chain
This fast growing food and beverage outlet chain operated 3 stores and planned to open many more. The owner suspected that the business was successful based on the cash position of the bank account, however, no accurate financial information was available from the MYOB file.
The Situation
The bookkeeping of the three stores was significant although payroll was weekly, the sales and purchase information was months behind, often only being completed at BAS time. No financial information such as a Profit & Loss was available for review by the owner.
Using a manual financial system where all sales, purchase and payroll time sheets had to be manually entered in MYOB.
Out of date and inefficient cash registers were used at each store. There was no sales information on what items were being sold and at what times for each of the three stores. There was also no end of days cash up process to cross check the cash and EFTPOS variances.
The Solution:
We advised the client on implementing a cloud based Point of Sale software (Vend) where the only hardware outlay required was an iPad for each store.
Precision MA then managed the migration of their financial software from MYOB to Xero - which seamlessly integrated with Vend.
By designing and implementing electronic time sheets for staff, this allowed the client to have all time sheets are entered directly into Xero at each store at the end of each day.
The PRECISION MA RESULTS:
The new point of sale software, Vend, provided detailed real time sales information for each store. At the end of each day, this sales information posted directly into Xero.
Internal controls were improved as each store now had a robust end of day cash procedure with audit trails and accountability for transactions.
All cash & EFTPOS deposits for each store were automatically matched in Xero, any variances in actual bank deposits provided another level of control.
As time sheets were entered in Xero by staff daily, the time to complete payroll each week halved.
The owner had access to accurate sales and wage cost information on a daily basis from Xero and Vend.
The only manual bookkeeping process left was for accounts payable and entering creditor invoices.