Finance Systems - MATs

[mb2k01]

I'm curious to find out what other Multi Academy Trusts use for their Finance Systems, and what they may have come from prior to being with their latest platform?

After spending lots of time with our Finance people looking at new options, I'm starting to thing there is nothing out there which is 'perfect' and that some compromise will end up having to be made alongside a hefty price tag!

[elsiegee40]

We went from FMS (legacy from pre academy days) to PS Financials at my governor MAT a few years ago. I can’t comment on the technical side, but the Finance Director much prefers it.

[Norphy]

We use Sun and Proactis supplied by Lake Financial (https://www.lake.co.uk)

[epoch_roots]

Civica Resource and it is trash.

 

Seems to be written using Access circa 2003. Running it over a VPN is not supported and it has zero tolerance for jittery connections. Their "cloud" offering is just a RemoteApp connection.

Edited April 11, 2019 by epoch_roots

[FragglePete]

Currently using PSF but we're moving away from them this summer to use HCSS. Support from PSF has been farcical. We feel that they are trying to hold our data to ransom by wanting to charge a 'Archive License' (50% of the current yearly cost) for when we move away from them as you have to retain at least 7 years worth of financial data to adhere to current legislation. When the license expires, we loose access to the front end. I'm working out the database dumps to Excel at present for when this happens as we have no intention of giving them more money.

 

Pete

[Meldrew]

PSF here. Wish we'd gone for anything else. Surely nothing can be as bad as this and cost the ££££££ that it does. Want to add another school, that'll be another small mortgage. But when they do the work, without fail they'll do a slap-dash job and will spend the next month fixing the stuff they forgot to do initially, or broke something else in the process. Worst financial software ever.

 

Meldrew

[Norphy]

I don’t think there’s such a thing as good finance software. Every package I’ve had the misfortune to manage looks like it’s been coded by a drunk lolcat.

[Ditto]

Went from FSM as a standalone academy to PSF as a part of a MAT. Appears to be a decision widely approved of.

[karldenton]

Sage Cloud here.

[Roberto]

I don’t think there’s such a thing as good finance software. Every package I’ve had the misfortune to manage looks like it’s been coded by a drunk lolcat.

 

Fine turn of phrase you have there!

[Norphy]

What can I say, someone had a profound influence on me...

[mb2k01]

Currently using PSF but we're moving away from them this summer to use HCSS. Support from PSF has been farcical. We feel that they are trying to hold our data to ransom by wanting to charge a 'Archive License' (50% of the current yearly cost) for when we move away from them as you have to retain at least 7 years worth of financial data to adhere to current legislation. When the license expires, we loose access to the front end. I'm working out the database dumps to Excel at present for when this happens as we have no intention of giving them more money.

 

Pete

 

This is exactly what we were planning on doing, but the Finance people report that parts of the Access system aren't ready yet (I think revolving around the need/desire to have a single database, using their terminology)

The PSF issue you mention is something I figured would come up, but as the move seems to have stalled I haven't engaged with them on that yet. I share your thoughts on the idea of paying them any more money though... not going to happen! I'd rather pay a SQL specialist do freelance and get our data out and usable!

[mb2k01]

PSF here. Wish we'd gone for anything else. Surely nothing can be as bad as this and cost the ££££££ that it does. Want to add another school, that'll be another small mortgage. But when they do the work, without fail they'll do a slap-dash job and will spend the next month fixing the stuff they forgot to do initially, or broke something else in the process. Worst financial software ever.

 

Meldrew

 

Yep. Agreed! We're in the same scenario.

Hopefully looking to move, but seems that has stalled a bit due to alternatives not really providing like-for-like, or being unable to accommodate how we currently/desire to work.

[mb2k01]

We use Sun and Proactis supplied by Lake Financial (https://www.lake.co.uk)

 

I can't say I've heard of Proactis previously.

How do you find the product?

If you don't mind me asking, how big is your MAT, and are your Finance Team centralised or do you still have people doing processing / rec at school level?

[mb2k01]

Civica Resource and it is trash.

 

Seems to be written using Access circa 2003. Running it over a VPN is not supported and it has zero tolerance for jittery connections. Their "cloud" offering is just a RemoteApp connection.

 

Your description of their 'Cloud' software is exactly the same as PSF Cloud too! Not sure how they have the cheek to call the product that tbh!

[Norphy]

I can't say I've heard of Proactis previously.

How do you find the product?

If you don't mind me asking, how big is your MAT, and are your Finance Team centralised or do you still have people doing processing / rec at school level?

 

The MAT has three, soon to be four clusters and eight, soon to be nine schools. There is a central Finance team and a Finance administrator per school cluster.

 

From what I understand, Proactis is used for purchase orders and invoice processing while Sun does other odds and ends but I'm not a Finance person so I don't really know what does what.

 

As for how good it is, well, Proactis has one of the most confusing and poorly laid out UIs that I've ever seen. I think the Sun side of the system is OK but from an end user perspective where I have to enter POs, Proactis is awful and entirely unintuitive. Saying that it looks like it's been coded by drunken lolcats like I did earlier is an insult to drunken lolcats. One thing it does have going for it, however, is that it doesn't use an Access database as a backend, it exclusively uses SQL.

 

The college where @Roberto and I used to work also uses the same system so I'm sure he can chip in with his opinion as well

Edited April 12, 2019 by Norphy

[mb2k01]

...

 

Think I'll cross those ones off the list then! Sounds about as positive as our PSF experience currently.

If I were to read between the lines, is the fact you're still with it also largely down to a significant 'investment' in it and those involved wanting to see a return / not seeing anything else viable?

[Norphy]

More inertia than anything else I think. It's not been in for that long and I don't think there's the appetite to move onto something else when, despite how horrible the interface is, what we have actually works.

[localzuk]

Another PSF user here. To be blunt - I dislike it. It is buggy, it is badly written, it is overly complex and hugely overpriced.

 

We also use PS People. And between the 2, we have someone have to connect in to our servers at least once a week to fix things.

 

Our favourite bug at the moment, in the MyPortal part of PSF, is where a user can save a draft requisition (as enforced budgets are enabled they can't submit it fully if their budget is "spent"), they then give the draft ID to finance, who open it, only to find that the data that should be there has changed. So a req for, say, a VESA screen mount from Amazon has suddenly changed into a mini bus booking...

[supportman]

Looking to go to HCSS from Corerro.

 

Looks to be the most modern cloud solution.

[pete]

We're using Sage 200 (from Civica pre-MAT). It has some annoyances (authentication backend aren't always in sync, so updated/new credentials may not work) but from a Finance and IT perspective it's better than Civica.

 

With my "budget holder who places/authorises POs" hat on, it's a bit lacking in terms of reporting / visibility of order status. You also can't (or it's not configured to) attach supplier quotes to Purchase Requisitions as attachments.

 

Don't underestimate how much impact the changeover will have on lead times for orders.