bpas

Healthcare charity supporting reproductive choice for women

Charity Overview

BPAS bpas (formerly known as The British Pregnancy Advisory Service) was established in 1968 to provide a safe legal abortion service. It is now Britain's largest single abortion provider, caring for almost 50,000 women with unwanted pregnancies each year. Currently 85 per cent of services are provided for the NHS, with 15 per cent for private clients from the UK and overseas, with the demand for its care continuing to increase. Its aim is to support reproductive choice by advocating and providing high-quality, affordable services to prevent or end unwanted pregnancy with contraception or by abortion. When bpas was formed, shortly after abortion was legalised in Britain, the National Health Service (NHS) was unable to provide abortion care for all who needed it.The NHS’ services remain limited and so bpas continues to work closely with them, providing a range of reproductive health care free of cost to the user, where local arrangements allow. bpas currently provides abortion care on behalf of more than 150 primary care organisations and is responsible for 50 per cent of NHSfunded abortions undertaken by specialist agencies. bpas is licensed by the Department of Health and inspected by the Health Care Commission. The head-office of bpas is based in Stratford-upon-Avon, with a UKwide network across 38 sites covering four regional offices, 14 treatment centres (clinics and day care units) and 33 consultation units. bpas also runs a Birmingham-based national and international call centre to take appointments for consultation and treatment.All units have access to a centralised booking system.

For more information on bpas visit: www.bpas.org.

The Challenge

Having used Pegasus Opera-DOS since 1995, bpas found that changes to both its business environment and its internal management structure meant the accounting and payroll systems were in need of an overhaul. bpas staff were using an accounts system that was both inflexible and inadequate for its requirements, along with a payroll package that would not comply with the upcoming legislation.With an increasing number of women needing its care, bpas had to ensure that any new systems employed would be able to cope with the continued growth in demand for its services.

Yvonne Catchpole, Financial Controller for bpas, says,“From April 2005, we were required by HMRC to submit end of year returns online, which our old payroll system would not support.We also needed greater flexibility and integration from our accounts package as we were changing as an organisation from one where everything was controlled from head office to a more devolved management structure.”systems employed would be able to cope with the continued growth in demand for its services. Yvonne Catchpole, Financial Controller for bpas, says,“From April 2005, we were required by HMRC to submit end of year returns online, which our old payroll system would not support. We also needed greater flexibility and integration from our accounts package as we were changing as an organisation from one where everything was controlled from head office to a more devolved management structure.”

The charity also required better management reporting as the process of extracting information out of the system and into Excel was a very laborious process.“We were combining data from different databases so there was plenty of room for errors. Reports took about a week to produce which was far too slow,” says Yvonne.

The Solution

bpas chose Windows-based Access Dimensions and Access Payroll, providing total integration between systems, greater reporting capabilities, and the flexibility required to meet the charity’s changing processes. “The great thing about Access Dimensions and Access Payroll is that they’re just so flexible. As they’re also being regularly updated, we can be confident that we’re not going to be left with obsolete systems further down the line. The solutions have totally helped to streamline our business processes.” bpas has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of errors from data processing, as it no longer needs to use a Microsoft Access database for inputting private receipt information. These details are now directly entered into the accounting system.

The charity was also able to have much more control over how it set up the nominal ledgers, which meant they could organise their coding to extract more meaningful reports.“We were able to define our own criteria so that we could report either charity-wide or down to the individual unit. This was absolutely crucial as we have around 40 cost centres. Now we can report in any number of different ways so managers are able to obtain reports with the level of detail that they require. These can be pulled off the system with ease and we are totally confident in the integrity of the information, which we weren’t before. “We now have a flexible multi-level, multi-category account coding and can create the reports we require in a couple of hours at the most. The ability to ‘drilldown’ and cross-reference information has been particularly useful as we can access the finer detail when we require or simply look at the broader picture,” comments Yvonne.

Customer Service

The service provided by the Access Specialist Centre was also central to bpas’ choice of systems. The charity needed a provider they could trust, that had worked closely with other charities and that understood their unique requirements.

Yvonne says,“The Access Specialist Centre was both professional and friendly, guiding us in the right direction every step of the way. They were not shy in questioning what we were asking for to ensure that the direction we were taking was the correct one. This did make us go back to the drawing board and think things through again on a number of occasions, which we really appreciated. They were totally dedicated to making sure we obtained exactly what we required from the systems.”

Before the project could be sanctioned, the charity needed to obtain buy-in from all the key stakeholders. “Despite management and staff changes within bpas, the Access Specialist Centre visited us on a number of occasions to discuss the solutions. They were very enthusiastic and we could see that the consultants would work well with our own team.”

Following installation, the consultants carried out training with all staff so that they were ready to use the new systems immediately. As there was a mix of skills which needed to be catered for, training took place in small groups so everyone received one-toone tuition. Yvonne comments, “All of our staff found the new accounts and payroll systems very easy to use as both were very intuitive. Some of our staff had only ever used the DOS system but with the patient tuition provided by the Access Specialist Centre, they got to grips with the new solutions in no time at all, easing the transition to the new Windows platform.”

Future Plans

bpas is currently developing an integrated bespoke solution for its Client Information Department system and its booking system. This will then be integrated directly with Access Dimensions. “We’re exceptionally pleased with the new payroll and accounts solutions and are now heading into phase two of implementation. Once this has been completed, we will then look to implement Executive Desktop, part of the Access Dimensions business intelligence functionality, to expand our reporting facilities even further,” concludes Yvonne.

The Benefits

Flexibility of software – Access Dimensions addressed the specific needs of bpas, right down to the bespoke coding system for the nominal ledger.
Integration – Access Dimensions and Access Payroll integrate seamlessly with third-party software solutions. As a growing charity, bpas required a system that would streamline their business processes and be scalable as demand for their services continues to increase.
In-depth reporting – Having easy access to accurate information was paramount for bpas.Access Dimensions has allowed them to drill down to exactly the detail they require with the minimum amount of effort.
Highly qualified and professional consultancy – The Access Specialist Centre worked in partnership with the bpas team to deliver solutions that closely fit the charity’s requirements.

The great thing about Access Dimensions and Access Payroll is that they’re just so flexible.As they’re also being regularly updated, we can be confident that we’re not going to be left with obsolete systems further down the line.