education.au limited is a non-profit company limited by guarantee and owned by the Australian education and training Ministers. Based in Adelaide, South Australia, the company facilitates, builds and manages national education and training networks supported by distributed online information services for schools, vocational education and training and universities.

“The CRM Contacts and Relationships module provides a central “hub” for us to store all contact and contractual information. We are really gaining benefit from the ease with which lists can be created for various purposes.”

As part of an operational review, education.au limited needed software to support and update their financial and contractual practices. They were using Greentree’s CBA financials and a number of disparate database systems for tracking the various organisations that they work with. Jason Haseldine, General Manager at education.au limited, believed the move from CBA to Greentree would have a beneficial impact on the company and the team. Haseldine says, “It was a natural step to replace CBA with Greentree and also a very positive move both in terms of enhanced technology, using a Windows based system and benefiting from continued support from the Greentree Business Partner.”

In choosing to move to Greentree they were able to bring their complex organisational data into one fully integrated business solution. Implemented and supported by the Greentree Business Partner, the team of eight users at education.au limited are using the core financials and the Greentree CRM – Contacts and Relationships module. Haseldine comments, “CBA worked well for us, but we were keen to reduce the use of multiple systems, reduce the month end work rate and improve our overall productivity with the Windows familiarity. Greentree addressed our business requirements.”

Greentree has a powerful financial reporting facility designed to harness the power of Microsoft Excel, this gives education.au users complete control over how reports are formatted and presented. education.au limited find the Excel integration of great value, giving more visibility of their business. Jason Haseldine has been able to show ‘real-time’ financial position of education.au limited to senior management.

Haseldine says, “Reporting in Greentree is so easy and fast, and far less time consuming than CBA. In fact, I often open Excel and produce ‘live’ reports on the fly to the senior management team in boardroom meetings, it’s that easy.” The Microsoft Excel “add-in” allows users to securely connect directly to the General Ledger and extract financial information for any period or year. He continues, “We want to do more with the reporting facility, such as invoicing. The functions are simple to use and offer so many new possibilities.”

“We are spoilt with Greentree for month end reports. There is no need to back up data or cross fingers, we simply right click and the reports are there. Greentree has saved us time processing the month end. I’d say about half a day a month can now be productively spent on other tasks.”

education.au limited have benefited from smoother and quicker month end and year-end processing. All transactions that are entered into Greentree are date stamped with the relevant period and year, so there is no formal period-end aging that needs to be performed. When users need to move into the next accounting period, they simply change the “current” period – a process that takes just seconds. “We are spoilt with Greentree for month end reports. There is no need to back up data or cross fingers, we simply right click and the reports are there,” Says Haseldine.

“Greentree has saved us time processing the month end. I’d say about half a day a month can now be productively spent on other tasks.” Comparing the advantages of Greentree over CBA, Haseldine has highlighted data entry and batch entry as key areas of improvement. Moving to Greentree has meant new functions to learn, including advanced functionality on existing processes. “Choosing not to use the batch system has enabled us to suit Greentree to our practices, reduce keystrokes and so time save. Also, Greentree has allowed custom screens for data entry, which is easier and simpler for the team. Being able to open multiple windows is also invaluable.”

The CRM Contacts and Relationships module provides a central "hub" for education.au limited to store all contact and contractual information, removing the need for their myriad of Access databases. The CRM system has made it incredibly easy to ensure there is one single corporate version of contact details and education.au limited are really gaining benefit from the ease with which lists can be created for various purposes such as Committees, Stakeholders and invitations through to the ultimate simplified creation of Christmas card lists!

Haseldine says, “We have consolidated all our systems. We scan and attach all our contracts, including correspondence, to this module, using ‘trees’ to categorise them. CRM is an easy, comprehensive module and offers us potential to do so much more.”

About education.au limited

education.au Limited is a non-profit company limited by guarantee and owned by the Australian education and training Ministers. Based in Adelaide, South Australia, the company facilitates, builds and manages national education and training networks supported by distributed online information services for schools, vocational education and training and universities. education.au Limited aims to add further value to these processes through the formation of strategic national and international alliances with a broad range of government sponsored organisations. education.au is a national ICT agency for education and training, owned by the Commonwealth and State and Territory education and training Ministers.

For more information visit www.educationau.edu.au