Summary
Herts Young Homeless (HYH) is a charity based in Hatfield, dedicated to helping prevent homelessness. They provide education in school, family mediation services as well as proving help to 16-24 year olds in their first homes or caring for adults of all ages who have mental health issues and housing needs.
When the charity received notification of a significant reduction in government funding they soon realised that they had some tough decisions to make; balancing the need to undertake an honest review of all overheads and determining where cost savings could be made with the need to be fair to their staff resulting in the least impact possible to the youngsters that depend on them.
Amongst other departments, HYH reviewed their finance function to determine whether some financial tasks could be delivered by a local firm of accountants in a more economical and effective manner. Visionary Accountants were selected for interview alongside several other local accountancy firms and invited to tender for this work. Happily, Visionary Accountants were selected as the preferred bidder for this work.
The Challenge
Following the bidding process, Visionary Accountants were chosen to undertake the handover of some specific tasks from the existing finance team; mainly centring around the ‘topping and tailing’ of the monthly management accounts and the output of these numbers for the Treasurer’s presentation to the Finance and General Purpose Committee. HYH wanted our help to simplify the monthly accounts reporting format and the chart of accounts, as well as the provision of monthly Profit & Loss reports, Cash Flow forecast reports and quarterly Balance Sheet reports.
In addition, as a charity, there is a need for the finances to be audited by a third party to ensure they are compliant with all the required policies and regulations. The charity felt there was a need for Visionary Accountants to assist with the support of the audit process where required with queries or information needed by the auditors.
The Solution
Working with the CEO, Treasurer and internal finance team, Visionary Accountants were able to seamlessly implement a reporting process using remote bookkeeping technology and by understanding the needs of the client.
Once the initial analysis and reviews had taken place, new Monthly Management Reports were introduced to provide updated information in order that effective decision making could take place. The amount of data that was being produced was rationalised in order to streamline this process, providing the efficiencies required. Visionary Accountants were happy to review processes and software where necessary to propose new methodologies that reduced workload and ultimately costs.
Further into our engagement Visionary Accountants were tasked with migrating the charity’s payroll from an outsourced provider to our in-house team. Visionary Accountants now provide monthly payroll services for nearly 50 employees and fully manage two workplace pension schemes on their behalf including assessment, compliance and communication.
Visionary Accountants USP
The differences that set Visionary Accountants apart from other firms is the capability to provide a direct and hands on approach. It also includes the technical support for the members of staff while learning the new software and financial control processes.
By providing the outsourced services it allowed HYH to concentrate on their core business with the peace-of-mind that the financial challenges were being addressed but at a lower cost.
Why Visionary Accountants
Herts Young Homeless chose Visionary Accountants for our friendly approach and the comprehensive range of outsource specialisms we can provide for finance teams.