- Charity
- Based in Sunderland
- Established in 2001
Solution Benefits
- Halved the time spent processing invoices
- Improved reporting
- Reduced the amount of printing
- Supports remote work
- Freed up time to spend on more value-added activities
Background
The Foundation of Light is the official charity of Sunderland AFC. Established in 2001, their mission is to use the power of football to invest in the communities they serve and to improve the education, health, well-being and happiness of people, no matter who they are.
The Challenge
The Foundation of Light’s previous accounts process was very manual and time-consuming. As a Group made up of three businesses with a small finance team, it was becoming challenging for them to process their 350 monthly invoices. Their process involved printing and manually typing the invoice details into Sage 200, before filing away all physical copies of invoices in a filing cabinet. This was costly, time-consuming, less sustainable, and took up a lot of filing space. This process was made more difficult with remote working. There were often delays when waiting for colleagues to return to the office so that invoices could be processed.
Additionally, as a charity, the Foundation of Light must regularly provide evidence for their grant returns. With their previously manual process, this involved the team having to go back through paper files and manually scanning in invoices to their system to send by email. This would take a lot of time and resources and pull their team away from other tasks in the business.
The Foundation of Light decided it was time for a change. Their Assistant Accountant said, “We reviewed our processes and realised invoice processing was an area that could be automated and free up our time for other tasks.”
”Verify has allowed us to massively reduce the time it takes between receiving an invoice to having it processed and recorded on Sage 200.
Assistant Accountant, Foundation of Light
The Solution
When the Foundation of Light was first approached by Agilico to discuss their accounts payable processes, they immediately knew it could solve their problems. Having worked with Agilico for a number of years, they trusted that Agilico could help them in other areas of the business. Therefore, Agilico’s cloud-based intelligent automated invoice processing solution Verify was chosen to save the Foundation of Light time and money, and reduce paper usage.
Their new accounts payable process begins with an invoice being submitted to a specific email mailbox. Once received, Verify
intelligently captures the relevant data off the invoice, including the net, VAT, gross, supplier and the company it relates to, which is vital for multi-entity invoice processing. The team then checks all the information has been populated, and passes the invoice on for coding and approval, before it is automatically posted into Sage 200. The invoices can be processed from anywhere, on any device, meaning there are no more delays when colleagues are working remotely. Their Assistant Accountant said of their new process: “Verify has allowed us to massively reduce the time it takes between receiving an invoice to having it processed and recorded on Sage 200”.
”Agilico as a company have been great to work with, very informative and helpful from the offset. This has led to further development conversations to streamline even more processes in the future. Working with Verify has been so beneficial to our small finance team that it has allowed us to free up time to concentrate on more value-added activities.
Financial Controller, Foundation of Light
The Benefit
Verify has halved the time the Foundation of Light finance team spent processing invoices. And, not only that, but Verify has also helped them become more sustainable, as their Assistant Accountant adds, “We have been working on reducing our carbon footprint and using Verify has allowed us to become more environmentally friendly by cutting down on the amount of printing we do.”
The solution has also made providing evidence for grant returns easy. Through the reporting tool included with Verify as standard, the Foundation of Light can easily create a report with links to all the relevant invoices that they can then click through to send to their funders.
This has saved them a significant amount of time and effort and ensures the funders receive all the invoices relevant to them. The reporting feature also helps the team out when it comes to submitting payment runs for approval. They can easily see exactly what is due to be paid at the time the report is run, enabling them to ensure all payments are processed before the due date.
The team are looking to the future when it comes to working with Agilico. They are excited to see and implement the next stage of Agilico’s financial processes software suite, the first iteration of which is due to be released before the end of 2024. The Foundation of Light’s Financial Controller
concludes, “Agilico as a company have been great to work with, very informative and helpful from the offset. This has led to further development conversations to streamline even more processes in the future. Working with Verify has been so beneficial to our small finance team that it has allowed us to free up time to concentrate on more value-added activities.”
Sustainability
By reducing the need to print 4,200 A4 pages annually, the Foundation of Light has made significant strides in its sustainability efforts.
This reduction equates to saving approximately half a tree1 each year.
This decrease in paper usage also translates to a notable reduction in CO2 emissions. By eliminating the need for 8.4 reams of paper annually, the Foundation of Light has prevented approximately 22.5kg of CO2 emissions2 each year.
1 Research from Conservatree calculates that one tree produces around 8,333 sheets of standard 75 gsm copier paper.
2 The European Declaration on Paper Recycling, Monitoring Report 2014 calculates an average of 6 grams of CO2 emissions per A4 page manufactured.
Partnering for Success: Agilico’s Collaboration with Barclays through the Eagle Labs Programme
Agilico is proud to collaborate with Barclays through their Eagle Labs programme, a partnership aimed at fostering innovation and digital transformation across various sectors.
This collaboration combines Barclays’ extensive resources with Agilico’s expertise in delivering cutting-edge solutions, providing organisations with the tools and support they need to streamline operations and drive efficiency.
Together, Agilico and Barclays are committed to helping businesses and charities, like The Foundation of Light, thrive in an increasingly digital world.
