New Plymouth Boys' High School’s new accounting

Old-school accounting gets an ‘F’

At New Plymouth Boys’ High School, the demands of modern school accounting had brought the incumbent CBA system to its knees. Louise Jenkinson, Accounts, explains that although CBA had been a faithful servant, it was inflexible and lacked the functionality required to produce tailored and timely information for multiple audiences.

With several high schools around New Zealand already using Greentree, Louise sought salvation from information overload by attending a demonstration at Auckland Grammar School.

Accessibility of historical data improves budget accuracy

After an initial consultation, the Greentree Business Partner was able to highlight a number of areas for improvement. “A really frustrating aspect of CBA was not being able to view previously closed-off periods within the system since once it was closed-off, that was it. This meant we had to retain the paper records so we spent a lot of time filing and retrieving files,” Louise explains.

The paper war ended when they transferred from CBA to Greentree, improving the usability of data by making it readily accessible for further analysis. “We’ve never been able to easily undertake comparative analysis before, but now we have historical data to work with, it’s just a mouse-click to view any period at any time I need to,” says a delighted Louise. Historical data now guides the preparation of budgets and since these are live, “departmental staff can identify anomalies and take proactive steps to correct them”. This is invaluable for management decision making and ensures budgets are kept on track.

50% reduction in reporting preparation time and analysis

The CBA system required reports to be compiled on a sequential line-by-line basis and was unforgiving when lines were inadvertently compiled out-of-order. Louise could spend hours trying to track the error and correct it. Since one report needed to fit everyone’s needs, they often contained fields of data which were unfamiliar, so consequently required further explanation. Report preparation could only take place once CBA had balanced, which could be well into the following month. The whole reporting process, from preparation to analysis had become extremely time-consuming for Louise, board members and teaching staff.

Now, she wonders how she coped and enthusiastically explains how Greentree’s Excel integration enables her to create tailored reports. A library of standard report templates can be customised with need-to-know information for specific audiences, which consequently eliminates the need for further explanation.

The preparation of reports takes place at the click of a button using the most current information available. These are presented within days, not weeks, to board members and staff. Louise estimates that she’s halved the time she spent preparing, explaining, distributing and filing reports, and now spends the time saved on more progressive tasks such as analysis and preparing budgets. Most importantly, Greentree has enabled the school to improve the timeliness and dissemination of information, which has resulted in a dramatic improvement in the quality of information for decision-making.

Greentree “forgiving” and Auditors love it!

“CBA was notorious for being out-of-balance!” exclaims Louise, and this absorbed many hours of detective work trying to track, trace and correct errors, which were practically impossible to find. Because she needed to get on with other tasks, Louise often needed to seek external help, which proved time-consuming and costly.

By contrast, Greentree has been cleverly constructed to trap and isolate errors, which makes them easy to find and correct. Since Greentree is more “forgiving” the school can retain control of error detection and correction, which immediately reduces consultancy time and costs. It also instils confidence in novice users, nervous about the possibility of mucking up organisational data.

Furthermore, Louise says the “auditors love it”, since Transaction Tree Analysis enables her to extract data by code for further review and analysis. This makes it easy to accommodate the auditor’s need for information with little, if any disruption to the daily functioning of the office.

Looking to extract more value from Greentree in the future

Teaching staff, Board of Trustees members, auditors and government agencies now get exactly the information they require on a timely basis. School management has quality information for planning and decision-making, and budgets are on track. Louise is happier to be spending time supporting the decision-making process, rather than wasting time trying to balance school accounts and filing reports. She’s looking forward to experimenting more with Greentree and says, “now that we have a sound understanding of how Greentree handles daily tasks, we’re contemplating what else we could do to help streamline other processes”.