Comic Relief is a British charity, established in 1985, whose vision is a just world, free from poverty. Comic Relief’s relationship with Xledger started in January 2022, and they kicked off their project with Xledger in June 2022. Of course, the work to choose a new finance system started long before this.
Bex McGann, Head of Finance at Comic Relief, talked to us about the business case that was put together that covered digital transformation throughout the charity – their new finance system was just one element of this wider programme. Comic Relief decided to implement the new finance system first, which laid the foundation for other aspects of digital transformation that would follow, such as new CRM and HR systems that will integrate with Xledger.
In reviewing their previous system, Comic Relief identified that it was no longer fit for purpose. The system was old and clunky, hard to use, didn’t integrate with other key systems that the charity used, and wasn’t web-based, which made it difficult to use as the charity moved to a new, hybrid way of working. Their old system had been in use for over 20 years and wasn’t providing a good service any longer. Bex says they had a good idea of their requirements of their finance system going forward:
“We wanted a system that could adapt to strategic requirements in the future, could produce reports that would be useful to the rest of the business (not just finance), and we also wanted to improve data quality, especially for year-end. And what we have now with Xledger is yards ahead of what we had before.”
Comic Relief started with a thorough review, assessing their existing processes to get an idea of what improvements needed to be made. This took some time, but the result was a detailed list of requirements that could be used when procuring their new system. This list also allowed them to measure the success of the project, and measure the progress and tick off targets as they went along.
During the digital transformation project, Comic Relief also took the time to identify stakeholders and key decision-makers in the project, then made sure they were in the room when any decisions were being made. That meant sure all stakeholders were moving forward together as the project progressed, and the right people were consulted across the business.
Lydia Fowles, Financial Data & Systems Lead at Comic Relief, noted that they hadn’t kept up with the updates in the previous system, so they were prepared for any change that they made would take some time. Lots of processes that were convoluted and time-consuming, which was often due to the limitations of the previous system and having always ‘done things that way’.
One of the big steps for Lydia and her team pre-implementation was to review the ways of working and processes to try and simplify and remove unnecessary steps; they were aware that they didn’t want to overcomplicate the new system set up too much, as bespoke elements from their old system had made it difficult to train new people in the team.
Some of the key deliverables Comic Relief highlighted for their finance transformation project were:
- To improve supplier management, alongside implementing their procurement policy
- Better and more automated reporting – including creating annual accounts directly from the system and to easily create VAT returns
- Improve productivity in the finance team – bank rec, fixed asset management, expenses and invoice approval to be completed within the system
- Better quality of data, especially around journal entry and automation of repetitive bank transactions.
Operationally, Lydia says they faced a few challenges during the implementation process:
“One of the main difficulties in the implementation was handling the data from our old system – the quality of the data wasn’t very good and it was a challenge to extract the data from the system. We really didn’t want to import bad data into our new system, so we had to undertake a big data cleansing exercise. The Xledger team helped by giving us templates, so we could upload the data into Xledger very easily.”
Comic Relief also had to manage an organisational restructure mid-project, which affected some of the charity’s original plans. Bex notes that “whilst we had a plan and a timeline, change is the ever constant, and being able to work with your supplier to flex timelines is important. We felt supported by a good supplier in Xledger who held our hand through the process, changing the way we were testing and training to adapt to the changes.”
When implementing Xledger, Comic Relief invested in their finance team and prioritised their learning. By using a superuser model and a ‘train the trainer’ approach, the finance team had chance to become comfortable with the new system before bringing new users onboard. Xledger’s hypercare period provided an extra level of support once the finance team were live with the system. Lydia noted that Xledger’s Support team would come back extremely quickly to any queries the finance team raised.
Now that Xledger is live and being used day-to-day within the finance team, Lydia says that onboarding new starters is much easier with Xledger. The finance team have seen a real improvement in the quality of data, with year-end data being much improved. The integrations with Salesforce and their bank are working well, though they still have aspirations for future integrations with their CRM and HR systems.
The finance transformation project for Comic Relief offered the chance to deliver a significant change in how the finance team supports Comic Relief’s mission as a charity. Xledger will continue to assist the whole finance team with their goals as they continue to expand how Xledger is used within the organisation.
