The United Kingdom’s leading "activity for health" charity, Central YMCA employs about 400 people and has 200 volunteers. Over time, the charity has invested in technology to support financial planning and management for the five very different organizations under its roof. In an effort to improve efficiency and enhance insight, Central YMCA recently migrated from its existing Sage 200 accounting solution to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. Since implementation, the charity has improved the efficiency of its core accounting processes by as much as 90 percent.

Prior to using Microsoft Dynamics GP, it used to take up to six weeks to produce month-end financial summaries for our five organizations. With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, it takes just three days, a 90 percent efficiency improvement. Paul Smith, Business Systems Integration Specialist, Central YMCA

Business Needs
Founded in 1844 as the world’s first YMCA, Central YMCA is the leading ”activity for health” charity in the United Kingdom, offering a wide range of health, fitness, and wellness programs. Central YMCA operates London’s premier health and fitness club, bestows over 70,000 fitness and health awards nationally and internationally, and provides professional fitness and health training.

Each of Central YMCA’s five organizations operates as an independent entity, with its own management and operating budget. The centralized accounting team struggled to support these organizations as they mounted new initiatives and added new services. The charity’s complex financial management and reporting needs grew beyond the capabilities of its Sage 200 accounting system, which was designed for simpler situations. Challenges included difficulties producing and mailing the rapidly growing volume of sales invoices and delays of up to six weeks in producing month-end financial summaries.

Central YMCA management recognized that the charity needed a new system that could properly support its burgeoning programs. Paul Smith, Business Systems Integration Specialist at Central YMCA, explains, “The central accounting team experienced limitations and difficulties providing dependable financial reporting to our five very different organizations.”

Solution
After comparing several accounting systems, including Access Accounting, IRIS Exchequer, and Sage 500, Central YMCA decided on Microsoft Dynamics GP. A presentation by the Touchstone Group, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in the United Kingdom, helped to finalize the purchase decision. “Touchstone showed us that Microsoft Dynamics GP supported seamless data migration and offered valuable capabilities,” says Smith. Central YMCA implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP and, when Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 became available in an early technology adopter program, upgraded to the new version.

Automated Invoice Processing
Central YMCA creates approximately 120 sales invoices every day, and the number is increasing. After the recent upgrade, the organization can create well-designed invoices in Microsoft Office Word, which draws information directly from Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. Central YMCA also takes advantage of the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 capability to automatically generate invoices and send them by e-mail.

Extensive System Integration
By using the eConnect tool in Microsoft Dynamics GP, the Central YMCA IT team easily integrated Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and the third-party payroll processing system. Now, the accounting staff does not have to manually transfer data between systems to record payroll information in the ledger.

Central YMCA also makes use of integration between Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Two of the organization’s divisions use Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and the charity’s gymnasium uses a third-party customer relationship management system to handle bookings. Activity within any of Central YMCA’s customer relationship management systems that requires an invoice now is recorded in Microsoft Dynamics GP by using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Personalized Business Insight and Reporting
Role Centers in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 enable Central YMCA to bring personalized business intelligence and easy access to important functionality to people in the organization. All users have specific roles in the solution so that they only see data they need to do their jobs. Several people are account managers and can set up new financial codes.

In business planning, Central YMCA uses the charting functionality and key performance indicators (KPIs) that come with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. The charity plans to make use of integration between Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 along with built-in dashboards to give department heads customized views of data for their areas of responsibility. Department heads will receive real-time information about how each department performs and can review a month-end summary of accounts much more quickly by using built-in Microsoft Office Excel reports.

Benefits
Central YMCA completed an efficient upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and has experienced substantial savings and efficiencies with the solution. “Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 is on track to deliver exceptional value to the organization,” says Smith. “The more we work with the solution, the greater the potential we see for efficiency improvements on a grand scale.”

Produce Accurate Invoices and Accelerate Revenues
The main benefit of integrating Microsoft Dynamics GP and Central YMCA’s customer relationship management systems is that invoices now are on their way to customers as soon as invoicing is prompted by a customer relationship management system. “As an added bonus, the pricing and financial coding related to those activities are always accurate and consistent,” says Smith. Hard-to-read sales invoices are now a thing of the past, and giving sales invoices an improved look and feel proved to be easy. Team members quickly modified Office Word invoice templates built in to Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010.

Improve Cash Flow
Central YMCA expects that automating the production and e-mailing of sales invoices will speed payments by seven days and save two boxes of paper per year. “We will be able to cut out the paper and mailing costs, saving several hundred pounds on paper alone while getting the information to the customer and payments in faster,” says Smith.

Streamline Payroll Processing
Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 extracts information about each of the organization’s 600 employees from human resources and payroll systems and then automatically assigns costs. “Microsoft Dynamics GP has helped us reduce what was a five-day task for payroll processing down to six minutes,” says Smith.

Close Books 90 Percent Faster
Under increasing pressure to report financial results more quickly, Central YMCA financial managers using Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 have significantly reduced the time it takes to close the books each month for all five organizations. “Prior to using Microsoft Dynamics GP, it used take up to six weeks to produce month-end financial summaries for our five organizations,” says Smith. “With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010, it takes just three days, a 90 percent efficiency improvement.”

Help People Work Faster and Smarter
At Central YMCA, giving employees information that’s relevant to their roles helps them work more efficiently and gain immediate business insights. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 offers deeper analysis with drill-down views that can take people quickly from a KPI or chart to a specific record source. “Getting the roles right reduces the amount of clutter on screens, and people like that,” says Smith. “A little extra time spent in setting up the roles properly makes it far easier for employees to do their jobs.” What’s more, because Microsoft Dynamics GP tracks everyone’s logon credentials, requests for password resets have fallen to near zero, saving time and energy for IT while eliminating an employee distraction.