BPA Platform saves time and money, improves accountability and provides further automation capabilities for independent charity
Codeless Platforms today revealed that Victim Support, an independent charity that provides free support to people who have been affected by a crime or traumatic events in England and Wales, has used BPA Platform to integrate its CRM and fundraising system, Donor Strategy, with its accounting system, Unit4 Business World On! (formerly Agresso). This has helped the organisation improve the management and reconciliation of income, save time and money, exploit the full potential of Donor Strategy, as well as automate additional activities and processes.
“BPA Platform was purchased along with Donor Strategy due to internal requirements and because of the caution expressed by the finance department which wanted to ensure everything was reconciled properly,” explained Steve Owen, Supporter Relations & Data Officer, Victim Support. “BPA Platform has been instrumental in a two-pronged approach with Donor Strategy to solve problems in terms of how Victim Support operates as a fundraising charity.”
For Victim Support, the funding structure changed between 2012 and 2014. Where they’d previously received grants from the Ministry of Justice for the provision of core services, these were now being devolved to crime commissioners. This meant that whilst Victim Support had been a registered charity since inception, there was now an emphasis on strengthening its fundraising streams to remain stable and sustainable for those needing its services.
The organisation therefore decided to deploy Donor Strategy to manage its fundraising and generate receipts for voluntary income. All income streams then need to be reconciled with Unit 4, its accounting system, by the finance team. To alleviate the burden on the team, BPA Platform was deployed to automatically export batched receipts from Donor Strategy every night, put them into a double-entry journal and push them into Unit 4 for reconciliation.
“This task is there to provide assurances that the process is consistent and reliable. It has also freed up man hours which would otherwise be spent manually creating this journal on a nightly basis,” explained Owen. “You can imagine the man hours that are now saved and will be saved well into the future. This is just one of 25 active tasks. In terms of time equalling money, it’s saved us a huge amount.”
The reason for the initial introduction of BPA Platform has remained key for Victim Support in gaining user engagement for Donor Strategy. Furthermore, BPA Platform has allowed Victim Support to exploit the full potential of Donor Strategy and really tailor the system to its precise needs.
“The integration with our finance system has helped to increase buy-in for Donor Strategy as a reliable platform for logging voluntary income,” said Owen. “Although BPA Platform was initially brought about by a specific need, it has expanded far beyond just fundraising. It’s now being used throughout the charity. For example, it is used in an audit capacity to make sure Gift Aid is being recorded properly. I can’t think of any occasions where I’ve looked at something we might want to do with BPA Platform and it’s not been possible.”
Victim Support has truly embraced BPA Platform’s capabilities and what it offers to the charity. The organisation is constantly looking at its processes and how they can be automated to save time and money. One such requirement that was cited was using BPA Platform to bridge the gap of the MailChimp plug-in from Advanced, which will be central to supporter engagement over the next financial year.
“Over the next quarter, we will also be using it in a CRM capacity, providing alerts to our team when key stakeholders haven’t been contacted in a determined amount of time. We’re also looking to use the data stored within Donor Strategy to automate fundraising campaigns as well as large scale communications via the policy team,” said Owen. “The expansion of BPA Platform is absolutely key for us; we have been identifying projects but we’re also encouraging requests from other teams about the automation they’d like to see.”
About Victim Support
Victim Support is an independent charity for people affected by crime and traumatic events in England and Wales. Its specialist teams provide individual, independent, emotional and practical help to enable people to cope and recover from the effects of crime. It is not part of the police, the courts or any other criminal justice agency. Its services are free and available to everyone, whether or not the crime has been reported and regardless of when it happened. Last year it offered support to 814,000 people. With over 40 years’ experience as the leading independent victims’ charity, the organisation understands the impact that crime has on people’s lives and what it takes to help them get their lives back on track. It works locally to support people affected by crime, and campaign nationally to put their needs first, ensuring that they get the support they need and the respect they deserve.
https://www.victimsupport.org.uk
About Codeless Platforms
Founded in 1999, Codeless Platforms is a highly experienced and trusted software company that develops data integration, business process automation and rapid application development solutions. Our two flexible, powerful platforms – BPA Platform and Applications Platform – enable organisations to take full control over their data as well as respond to the rapidly changing demands of business today.
Our knowledge of the marketplace and channel has grown in line with this development and established us as a highly experienced and reputable software company, working with partners and software vendors (Access, Infor, Microsoft, Sage and SAP) who have the confidence to invest in Codeless Platforms.
With over 450 global partners, more than 7500 customers use Codeless Platforms’ software solutions, ranging from diverse global organisations to the small local enterprise. The company is headquartered in Poole, UK, with representative offices throughout the world.
