Apex Housing

Apex was migrating from their legacy system which had been used for over 20 years, seeking to gain better control over accounts payable/receivable processes and access to full and traceable audit trails. However, they required a robust finance management system to support this need and better serve their community.

The challenge

Before approaching Xledger, Apex set itself the goal of growing their housing offering to 10,000 units. The association operates on a group structure and needed a modern, true-cloud finance solution to help standardise internal processes and consolidate financials across different entities.

1. Month-end

Like many housing associations, Apex found they were losing significant time at month-end, with many of the tasks being completed manually across several spreadsheets. This not only affected their finance department but the wider business, too, as siloed data and task duplication increased.

2. Lack of real-time data

Alongside the issue of month-end was the lack of real-time data accessibility. Apex relied on manual effort to complete consolidation and reporting tasks — as soon as data was pulled from the system and reported on, it was out of date.

3. Lack of audit trail

Apex dedicated excessive manual labour to creating audit trails. With so much time spent ensuring compliant operations and correct invoicing, the finance department lacked the resources to analyse data and complete value-adding tasks.

What did Apex want to achieve?

When Apex came to Xledger, the association was looking to:

• Improve audit evidence with automated and traceable audit trails
• Automate workflow processes to reduce month-end time
• Access better invoice registration
• Gain accurate, real-time information for reporting purposes

Apex’s digital transformation team, headed by Paul Moore, Financial Controller and Helen Walsh, Finance Manager, understood that undergoing a digital transformation and rewiring current processes was the key to improving Apex’s business operations and community offering.

Paul and Helen dedicated the appropriate time and resources to the project. They made sure that the Apex team knew which processes needed to change, and the deadline, budget, and communication that was required to complete a successful implementation.

What gave Xledger the competitive edge?

Xledger’s automation was the key selling point for Apex’s stakeholders. Xledger is the market’s most automated finance software, and provides configurable workflows for invoicing, accounts payable/receivable, expenses, purchase order creation, project reporting, and many other modules. With these capabilities, alongside excellent accountancy-trained consultants and Customer Success team, Xledger stood out from other mid-market solutions.

What did Apex do well?

Paul and Helen brought key stakeholders, the finance function, and end-users together to ensure complete collaboration and staff buy-in. After exploring the market, Apex’s digital transformation team felt Xledger understood their unique requirements and were able to communicate the benefits and limitations of the system to finance and non-financial professionals alike.

The result

After careful evaluation, Apex selected Xledger as their new true-cloud finance management solution. The team completed implementation within 3 months, knocking an impressive 4 weeks off the planned delivery. Excellent collaboration and communication between Apex and Xledger ensured the project came in within budget and under the allocated time.

Xledger’s automation helped standardise invoicing, and project reporting workflows. Apex has noticed a shift in how employees interact with data.

End-users are now able to see the General Ledger codes that expenses are posted to, and can query these when necessary. Not only this, but the drill-down functionality allows end-users to see exactly what lies behind each line, increasing oversight, control, compliance, and accountability.

As Apex continues to grow and fulfil its mission of building sustainable communities, it can leverage Xledger’s automation, integration, and reporting capabilities without the worry of time-consuming manual tasks, lack of oversight, and duplicated workflows.

We value the Xledger and Apex partnership that has grown from this implementation project and will continue to nurture this to help the housing association fulfil its mission.

To get in touch with Xledger, click here.