Software firm creates new finance system for hospice

Weldmar Hospicecare, the Dorset charity providing specialist end-of-life care and support, has introduced cloud-based accountancy software from Bristol-based bluQube to bring cost savings of 20% to operations.

Implemented at the turn of the new financial year in April, bluQube was introduced to help the charity, which relies on donations, to make the best use of its charitable funds.

The team was previously relying on time-consuming and inefficient manual processes, alongside a legacy system which they deemed wholly unsuitable for an organisation of their size.

This meant the charity was eager to implement a new system that could make managing invoices, purchase orders (PO), and the bank reconciliation process more sophisticated.

Now four months on, bluQube has generated significant time savings through OCR scanning and has generated a cash saving of 20% on department costs.

David Healey, director of finance at Weldmar Hospicecare, said: “We started our search for a new finance system towards the end of last year, exploring various solutions on the market. We were looking for a new system that would support us through the new financial year when we planned to make some significant changes to our reporting structures. And so far, so good.

“We were previously relying on a system that did not provide the service we expected. It lacked proper period accounting and was not cloud-based so we had to introduce costly internal infrastructure to make it work for our team. But with bluQube we have already been impressed.

“Our finance team feels confident using the system and is enjoying the time savings it brings. We have also demonstrated the system to various people across the organisation and it has been met with very positive feedback. Budget holders in particular are keen to get better control over their expenditure and drill down into their costs where possible using the system.”

Nicky Wilkins, head of customer engagement at bluQube, said: “Managing finances within charities can be a complex task. They are handling donations and funding from various sources, alongside the usual overheads. We were confident that bluQube could remove some of the headaches that came with managing the organisation’s finances by streamlining operations. We implemented the key functionality in April, but since then we have even introduced additional services including fixed asset management and automated invoice approvals to further improve their processes.”