Help Musicians was operating on legacy software that had stopped receiving updates.

About the client

Help Musicians is a charity for professional musicians of all genres, from starting out through to retirement. They help with issues of health and welfare in times of crisis, as well as giving musicians the support and connections they need at the stages that could make or break their career.

Their support also responds to the growing mental health challenges in the music industry, with its sister charity Music Minds Matter providing 24/7 services to support everyone working in music. They work relentlessly to try to provide all the musicians seeking help with advice, guidance and, where needed, financial assistance.

The Challenge

An out of tune system

Help Musicians was operating on legacy software – a version of Microsoft GP that had stopped receiving updates a number of years ago.
The challenges of working with the system were clear – the finance team were too focused with admin tasks, leaving no time for strategic financial analysis to support decision-making and add value to the charity.

Help Musicians was undergoing a digital transformation, and it was integral that their finance system was brought up to date to improve efficiencies and business processes.

Frustrating restrictions on their current software solution meant that the finance team didn’t have access to the tools they needed to simplify and automate processes. This meant that more time was spent by the finance team undertaking manual processes, and the team felt that their time could be better spent on areas that would add value to the charity from business partnering to financial analysis and reporting to aid decision making.

A harmonious partnership

To access data, non-finance staff would have to rely on the finance team to provide this information which slowed down decision making. Also, the finance team would have to rely on manually inputting data and using Excel for reports, a laborious process that cost precious time that could be spent elsewhere to further the charity’s impact.

After undergoing a tender process, a consultant recommended ForGood.Tech due to their experience of working in the charity sector. One of the most important factors for Help Musicians was being able to meet their project lead before signing a contract – reassuring them that what the sales team had promised was indeed deliverable, and that there was a clear project plan in place, giving Help Musicians the confidence to work with ForGood.Tech.

The Solution

A solution that sings

To modernise the finance systems in place, while also meeting the needs of the charity, it was decided that the best software solution would be ForGood.Tech’s Business Central and NFP pack. The capabilities of this system met all the requirements of Help Musicians, automating many menial financial tasks, and crucially their purchase order process meaning that non-finance staff could raise and approve purchase orders in a timely manner. By choosing Business Central, Help Musicians were safe in the knowledge that there was room for further developments in the future, offering a future proofed finance system.

Two years on from their go live, Help Musicians has seen dramatic results:

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“Our processes are more streamlined, and we’ve really benefited from new workflows that weren’t available to us on our old system.”

Help Musicians

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A performance piece

Business Central’s in-built controls means that the system is now automating tasks for Help Musicians, such as approval thresholds, which were having to be manually checked by an individual beforehand. Thanks to these streamlined processes, the risks of relying on manually inputted data and losable spreadsheets are gone – all the financial data is easily accessible, actionable, and readily available.

Business Central is easy to navigate and find what you’re looking for. Our old system relied on you knowing exactly where to find things.

Help Musicians was concerned about whether what had been proposed was going to be delivered and the transitional process from their old system to the new. In a fast-paced charity like Help Musicians, grants must be approved daily, meaning there is no time for “downtime” – the transition needed to be smart and seamless.

ForGood.Tech managed expectations by building extra fallback time into the three month timeframe. In the end, the project was delivered successfully by the go live date, with minimal impact on the day-today operations of the charity.

Looking to the future

The show must go on

By choosing Business Central, Help Musicians future-proofed themselves with the option for further development with the help of ForGood.Tech. Looking forward, the charity plans to continue its modernisation by taking advantage of some of the feature set offered – non-financial staff will be trained on generating reports, and the visual features will be used to better inform people across the entire organisation.

Help Musicians also plans for a custom solution in the future for handling reimbursement – their operations involve a range of expense accounting, including for non-staff. This is where a custom solution may come into play, and the adaptability of ForGood.Tech’s Business Central can shine.

ForGood.Tech has a strong record of collaboration and modernisation of systems within charities. ForGood.Tech looks forward to working with Help Musicians in the future to continue their digital transformation.