Weaver Vale Housing Trust has extended its use of Orchard’s software with the implementation of the company’s new Collaborative Planning module in order to automate its budget planning.
Weaver Vale’s budget process was previously managed using a series of Excel spreadsheets which had to be completed and collated in order to move the budget process forward and for sign off. The housing provider recognised that for all of Excel’s strengths, it’s not designed to be a collaborative or sharing tool and it doesn’t necessarily have the controls needed to ensure good data governance.
By removing the reliance on Excel and replacing the spreadsheets with an online tool purpose-built for preparing and building budgets on a collaborative basis, Orchard’s Collaborative Planning software offers a solution for both the creation and subsequent monitoring of financial plans and forecasts. By enabling collaboration, the key financial processes of budgeting and forecasting are optimised and timescales and costs are significantly reduced.
Alan Maddock, specialist finance advisor, Weaver Vale Housing Trust, said, “We needed something that would remove a lot of the manual processes involved in our spreadsheet-based method of managing the budget preparation. We’re confident that Orchard’s Collaborative Planning will not only give everyone involved the ability to input directly in to the budget process, but also monitor and plan more effectively.”
Danny Tobin, chief operating officer, Orchard, said, “We are delighted that Weaver Vale continue to invest in our relationship and in Orchard’s financial solutions. By working with Weaver Vale as a trusted advisor, we’ve been able to help in significantly enhancing the overall budgeting process through the implementation of our Collaborative Planning software. This should drive measurable efficiencies for Weaver Vale and deliver a strong return on their investment.”
