Purchase Ledger Outsourcing

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The challenge

Purchase ledger is one of the most important but laborious finance tasks in the education sector. Put simply, any finance report would be incomplete until all the purchase invoices have been processed in a timely manner. If invoices are processed late, you are most likely understating your expenditure, which would also dilute your balance sheet and cashflow statement. 

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Most of the multi academy trusts wish to centralise their invoice processing function but are reluctant to do so for the following reasons:

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• Cost - centralisation means increasing the size of the finance team which would most likely be part of the central services charge/top slice. Therefore, there is a real pressure to keep the costs down.

• Recruitment - finance recruitment is a major challenge for any employer, even more so in the education sector for relatively lower wages as compared to the commercial sector.  Whilst recruitment is challenging, staff retention is even harder. 

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Why outsource?

With our shared service model, we can offer:

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• Full invoice processing at as little as 66% of the cost of an in-house solution. Our prices are based on market research and our years of experience in the education sector. Our prices are calculated based on gross revenue.

• With our shared office model, risks associated with staff recruitment and retention are mitigated by having a large pool of staff. 

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Transactional finance outsourcing

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As one of the requirements of the academy trust handbook, every academy trust must have a CFO. However, academy trusts can completely outsource the rest of their finance teams if they wish. Some other functions such as HR, payroll and health & safety have been outsourced by some organisations for a number of years. 

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As part of our comprehensive finance outsourcing package, we can take over the following functions:

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• Invoice processing

• Income posting

• Bank reconciliations

• Payroll journals posting

• Supplier statements reconciliation

• Month end reports for approval

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