East Devon College

East Devon College was founded in Tiverton in 1875. Today, it caters for over 7,000 students annually or, in other words 1,400 full time equivalents, allowing for part time students and those enrolled on more than one course. The Government’s own examination league tables place the college in the top twelve colleges in the country and, for the second year running, the highest placed college in the South West.

According to its mission statement, it aims to promote the curriculum of a responsive Tertiary college, having opted out of local education authority (LEA) control and becoming incorporated. This change meant that it had to learn how to behave as a business responsible for its own finances whilst continuing to deliver first class further educational services.

In 1993, the College moved away from the commitment and cash accounting system in use by it LEA, to installing its own accrual accounting-based system.

In 1995, East Devon College decided to completely re-evaluate the financial system in order to restore user confidence in a inefficient system and, at the same time, try to take advantage of the business benefits offered by Windows-based accounting solutions.

East Devon College gained experience of procuring software applications when it left LEA control in line with the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 and had to find an alternative to using the LEA mainframe. The system it installed in 1993 appeared to offer the managers everything they needed at a keen price. However, it became more and more unreliable from both an IT and accounting point of view. Support became unacceptable, costing the College at least one day every week in downtime for senior staff, spent in troubleshooting. The data file grew substantially despite monthly reindexing routines and later became unmanageable. Increasing problems led to declining user confidence and this became a fundamental business reason for change.

IT Strategy

In February 1995, the College began researching the market for a replacement system with the intention to go live in July 1995. The decision making team included Director of Finance Allan Punton, Accounts Supervisor Chris Hunter-Johnson and College Auditor Katy Biggs. They prepared an outline specification, looked through trade journals and took note of product reviews. Their primary decision factor was to find a Windows-based system that would restore user confidence. They contacted other colleges but, apart from Pershore College of Horticulture which gave a good recommendation, received mainly non-committal answers. To aid procurement, they adopted the checklist published by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

A shortlist was prepared which comprised six packages. Details were requested and on-site demonstrations arranged. Reference sites were contacted by the decision-making team. Evaluation software played a vital role in selecting the right system because of the user confidence issue. Staff were asked to try out the different software packages on standalone computers located in the accounts office. A formal checklist was put back to all suppliers requesting their proposals. Two packages were immediately dropped from the list because suppliers were unable to answer certain technical issues to the satisfaction of the decision-making team. External auditors, Price Waterhouse were involved to ensure the selection process was appropriate.

“Positive feedback from accounting staff determined the final choice of Access Accounts on the basis of its true Windows interface design and its capability to restore user confidence in our accounts system,” said Allan Punton.

East Devon College is financed mainly by the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) in the form of grant income which is profiled over twelve months commencing each July. In addition to FEFC funding, the College also earns income delivering training funded by Devon and Cornwall Training and Enterprise Council and by providing premium priced training and consultancy direct to business, especially in the area of information technology.

All the financial disciplines of a commercial manufacturing business are deployed in the College. Punton said: “Work in progress reports have to be produced for each student and for their qualification combination, which can be any one of 3,500 possible combinations. Wastage must be accounted for when a student leaves a course prematurely and, to ensure core funding rates apply rather than marginal rates, price/volume breaks have to be costed in the event of under or over achievement.”

Tracking income and expenditure places a mission critical emphasis upon the finance department because of the complex funding rules. Forecasting cashflow and resource planning for an entire academic year commencing in September was previously very time consuming. This was compounded by a requirement to submit a Funding bid the February prior.

The system went live on time in July 1995 after just one month parallel run. Allan Punton said: “Everyone was surprised by how smooth the transition to Access Accounts went. There was no heartache although we were expecting and budgeting for all kinds of trouble. As a result of implementing Access Accounts, we have been able to obtain better access to our business data.” The migration in the first year included software, on-site training and 10 days consultancy. No cost of staff time had to be apportioned to the installation since it required minimal involvement. Upgrading the software version in the summer of 1996 was unusually free from problems, causing minimal interruption. However, Punton takes the view that the system’s day-to-day reliability provides the most favourable benefit-to-cost ratio of any Windows-based accounting package available.

Easy to navigate layout, good screen design and system reliability has meant that user confidence in the accounts system has not only been fully restored but also enhanced. All accounts staff at East Devon College enjoy using Access’ Windows-based system for data entry as well as for reporting.

A two day on-site training session boosted the confidence of staff. The chart of accounts was changed to include an alpha numeric code structure which has meant that staff are able to understand the system more easily than before.

The straightforward design of the import utility has meant that Chris Hunter-Johnson is able to fluently import the 300-line journal from the payroll system every month. Time and consultants’ fees were also saved during implementation since Hunter-Johnson also handled the importing of their legacy data.

The successful installation of Access Accounts has given Punton and his team the ability to plan resources more accurately, to forecast income and expenditure more quickly and to support the effective management of East Devon College.