Bury College

‍About Bury College

Bury College is a leading further education college in Greater Manchester, delivering a wide range of academic and vocational programmes to support students, employers, and the local community. With a strong focus on employability, skills development, and student success, the College plays a vital role in driving regional growth and opportunity.

As a large FE institution, Bury College manages complex financial processes across multiple departments, with a need for strong governance, accurate reporting, and efficient workflows to support both operational delivery and strategic decision-making.

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Previous System Challenges

Bury College’s existing finance system was no longer aligned with the College’s evolving requirements. As expectations around integration, automation, and reporting increased, the College identified the need for a more modern, scalable solution.

Key challenges included:

• Limited flexibility and scalability to support future growth and evolving structures

• Fragmented processes, with reliance on multiple systems and manual workarounds

• Inefficient workflows and approvals, particularly across procurement and finance operations

• Complex reporting requirements, with a need for improved drill-down and user-friendly outputs

• Integration challenges with key systems such as payroll, student records, banking, and payment platforms
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Objectives

Through a formal tender process, Bury College defined a clear set of requirements for a new Finance Management System. The College was looking for:

• Accurate, reliable financial processing and reporting, with strong analytics and drill-down capability

• A user-friendly, accessible system for both finance and non-finance users

• A fully integrated, modular and scalable platform to support core finance, procurement, workflows, document management, departments, projects, and future organisational change

• Seamless integration with key systems including payroll, student records, banking, and payment platforms
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The Solution: Sage Intacct for Education

Bury College selected Sage Intacct for Education, implemented by ION, as their new cloud-based financial management platform. Sage Intacct for Education is a true-cloud solution, purpose-built to meet the complex and evolving needs of education providers, offering flexibility, scalability, and real-time visibility across the College.

ION partnered closely with Bury to configure Sage Intacct for Education to meet its operational, reporting, and integration needs. This included:

• Implementation of a full modular finance suite, including general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, cash and bank management, fixed assets, and budgeting and forecasting

• Dimensional chart of accounts, enabling flexible reporting across departments, projects, and cost centres, as well as supporting future structural changes

• Modernised P2P Process, supporting electronic ordering, approval routing, and goods receipting within a controlled environment

• Integration framework, enabling connectivity with payroll/HR systems, student records, banking platforms (including Lloyds and BACS), CRM systems, and third-party payment providers such as Flywire

• Enhanced reporting and dashboards, delivering real-time insight with drill-down capability and reducing reliance on spreadsheets

• Document management functionality, allowing storage and retrieval of key financial documents such as invoices directly within the system

As a result, Bury College is moving towards a more integrated and efficient finance function, with improved visibility, stronger controls, and reduced manual intervention.
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What Bury College Said...

“We were looking for a system that could truly support the way a modern college operates. As a further education college, our finance function sits at the centre of a wide range of systems, processes, and stakeholders. We needed a platform that could bring all of this together. Sage Intacct for Education has given us a modern, integrated environment that supports how we operate today, while giving us the flexibility to evolve as the demands of college finance continue to change.” Vicky Hayhoe, Head of Financial Services

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With Sage Intacct for Education in place, Bury College now has a modern, scalable financial platform that supports both current operations and future growth.

The College is well positioned to continue enhancing its financial processes, improving insight, and maximising return on investment from its finance function as it evolves.

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