iplicit exceeds expectations for Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

A new finance system has ‘exceeded expectations’ for the world-renowned City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) by saving time and producing better information.

CBSO had been working with an on-premises accounting system and needed to move all its IT away from physical servers.

It took the opportunity to adopt a system that would save large amounts of time and produce real-time insights into its finances.

Sally Munday, Director of Finance & Resources, decided iplicit stood at the midpoint between basic cloud software and expensive enterprise-level systems.

She says the orchestra has saved time from the move and can have more confidence in its financial data.

Sally said:

“We’re able to have more trust in the quality of financial information.

“Managers are going to be able to get more involved in budgeting, forecasting and profiling into next year, which again improves people’s trust in the finance department and the live data.

“That’s been hugely beneficial. It’s very much something that CBSO wanted out of the system, but it seems it’s exceeded expectations.”

The CBSO team, which was used to working with the Exchequer platform, has found iplicit intuitive to use.

Sally added:

“The software is enormous and powerful and yet it’s very friendly in the way reports and other things are laid out.

“Because our admin staff are in and out of iplicit now, going into the system to claim expenses or put on a purchase order, it’s been an opportunity for us to raise the profile of finance and remind people about the importance of doing things like raising POs and processing approvals promptly.”

Finance Manager Mark Pallett added:

“There’s real confidence in the numbers, which wasn’t always there with Exchequer because there were so many manual processes that we had to do. Things like prepayment release and deferred income release are automatic. It gives you confidence so you can report instantly rather than finally getting this month’s management accounts in two months’ time.

“We’re already seeing time savings from things like bank reconciliation, which is saving one of my colleagues a good couple of hours a week.”

Luke McKenna, iplicit’s Senior Business Development Manager responsible for the arts and cultural sectors, said: 

“We were thrilled to bring CBSO on board as an iplicit customer. We knew that iplicit could have a profound impact on CBSO, providing all the functionality the team needed but also fitting in with a wider digital transformation taking place throughout the organisation.

“It’s been wonderful to see the CBSO team not only saving large amounts of time with iplicit but producing the kind of real-time data and analysis that can be transformational for an arts organisation.”

You can read the CBSO case study in full on iplicit’s website.