Beckfoot Trust love IRIS Financials’ user-friendly interface

Customer Profile 

Beckfoot Trust is a ten-school trust based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. They include a diverse range of schools that all share the same ethos. 

Business Challenge 

Their old financial management system wasn’t able to keep up as they moved from a single school to a multi-academy trust; all school sites needed to be on the same page, so it was time for change. 

Overview 

We spoke to Lisa Grimshaw, Trust Finance Officer at Beckfoot Trust about her experiences with IRIS Financials. 

“We moved to IRIS Financials in 2012. We were looking to be a MAT at the time, but our financial management software didn’t support a multi-site model. They couldn’t support our needs going forwards as we expanded.” 

“Now, we use IRIS Financials in all ten of our schools. We manage our finances from a central location, but each school also has a finance team and IRIS Financials access. Some things are centralised and some things are devolved.” 

“We recently moved IRIS Financials to the cloud to help us with remote working during the coronavirus pandemic. IT changes also meant that the cloud was an easier option.” 

“We’re having a much easier time now that we've switched to the cloud. The user input is easy – wherever you are in the accounting system, entering documents or transactions is very straightforward.” 

“Navigating around the system makes sense. There’s lots of different ways to get to the same information. PS Purchasing is also simple to use and dead user-friendly.” 

“Working with the IRIS implementation team was straightforward. It was quite seamless, really. From my point of view, it was very straightforward.” 

“In the near future, we’re looking to move everything over to the cloud. Moving to the cloud has definitely been a positive move for our COVID-19 response. To begin with, it was difficult because we were working from home before moving to the cloud. We were all working in a certain way using the servers.” 

“Since then, we’ve moved onto the cloud and learned to manage our way around the IT. Once you’ve learned the best way to do it, it’s become very positive for us.” 

Conclusion 

IRIS Financials makes it simple for trusts of any size to move to a cloud-based financial model – and they can start reaping the rewards straight away. 

“I would recommend IRIS Financials to any school as I find it really easy to use. There’s so many different ways to get to the same information.”