St Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Academy Trust Modernises with Sage Intacct for Education
About St Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Academy Trust
St Cuthbert’s Roman Catholic Academy Trust is made up of 15 schools based in and around Hull, Humberside, and Scarborough. Their core mission is to deliver high standards of Catholic education, with Christ at the centre of all their efforts.
Initially formed with two schools, the Trust has expanded over the years, including significant growth in 2022 by merging with 7 schools from East Riding and North Yorkshire. Following this period of rapid expansion, St Cuthbert’s sought a more modern and comprehensive finance system that would support their evolving needs as a growing MAT.
Previous System Challenges
St Cuthbert’s faced several challenges with their existing Sage 200 finance system. Despite its reliability, the system was not modern enough to meet the Trust's growing needs. Key pain points included:
- Approval Limitations: Caused inefficiencies within approval processes as the Trust expanded
- Limited Reporting Capabilities: Could not be automated or scheduled and previous year posting was not possible
- Poor Visibility: Financial dashboards had limited functionality and budgets vs actuals were not easily accessible
- Char of Accounts (COA): While they had the DfE COA, codes were messy and caused confusion
- Purchase-to-Pay (P2P): Clunky and time-consuming, requiring budget holders to manually communicate with the central team
Objectives
Recognising the need for a more modern, true-cloud solution, St Cuthbert’s sought a financial management system that would achieve the following key objectives:
- Enhance Reporting and Dashboards: Streamline reporting processes, and boost visibility
- Modernise P2P Process: Automate and streamline the purchase-to-pay workflow to boost efficiency and reduce admin
- Seamless Integrations: Implement both ways integration with IMP and IDAMS, and ensure OCR integration with Paperless
- Automated Annual Accounts Return (AAR): Automate and streamline AAR reporting
- Clean COA Codes: Organise and map codes in the new COA
St Cuthbert's + Sage Intacct
St Cuthbert's implemented Sage Intacct for Education from ION as the ideal finance solution to bring them into the modern world of cloud-accounting.
St Cuthbert’s can now easily consolidate financial data across all 15 schools, and Sage Intacct’s advanced reporting capabilities offer real-time insights into budget and expenditure. Budget holders can now access detailed, up-to-date reports in just a few clicks, drastically reducing the time spent compiling reports. The Trust’s P2P process has been streamlined allowing requisitions to be electronically submitted and approved with the addition of a GRN step to further enhance efficiency. With the DfE COA as standard, Sage Intacct for Education has also improved the Trust’s COA structure to boost accuracy.
Sage Intacct for Education’s modern true-cloud infrastructure and open API has also provided St Cuthbert’s with two-way integration with IMP and automated the preparation of Annual Accounts Return reports. Sage Intacct for Education has delivered a modern, efficient, and scalable financial management solution. The Trust is now better equipped to support its mission of providing exceptional Catholic education and is well-positioned for future growth and success.
What St Cuthbert's said...
Emily Saddington, Business Support Manager at St Cuthbert's, said:
“We are delighted with the implementation of Sage Intacct for Education by ION. Not only have our financial processes been streamlined and optimised, but we also now have greater visibility into our financial data than ever before with in-depth reporting and analytics. ION’s team delivered a strong project with great expertise, and we are already seeing greater efficiencies with our modernised system.”
