Alternative futures

About

Founded in 1992 and headquartered in Liverpool, U.K., Alternative Futures Group is a large charitable organization that provides person-centred support to adults with learning disabilities and mental health needs. Alternative Futures Group is ranked in the top 100 of charities in the U.K., with annual turnover of 60 million GBP. The organization employs 2,500 people in the northwest region of England and offers support services to 900 individuals.

Location: Liverpool, UK
Industry: Non-profit

 

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Robust Reporting Enables UK Non-profit to Streamline Forecasting, Develop 5 Year Plan

Non-profit’s Transformed Financial Processes Earn Recognition in Accounting Management Excellence

Alternative Futures Group, a health and social non-profit based in the United Kingdom, sought to improve its financial management. It had been using a spreadsheet-based platform, which lacked the flexibility to integrate multiple budgets and produce scenario models. Adaptive Planning software revamped the organisation's financial processes, including how it extracts key metrics, which prompted a review on ways to effectively deliver health services. As a result, Alternative Futures Group earned national recognition as a leader in accounting management excellence.

Challenges

  • Working with as many as 100 collaborators on the same budget in Excel
  • Difficult to adjust forecasting in a spreadsheet-based model
  • Slow and  inconvenient process for headcount budgeting
  • Challenging to conduct scenario modelling and understand the impact on cash levels

Results

Alternative Futures Group has benefited from Adaptive by reducing the time it takes to make a change in an assumption and applying that change across the model from days to minutes.  In addition, the finance team is able to conduct more robust modelling of different scenarios and provide information to the entire operation much more quickly. 

  • Finalise complex changes to assumptions or capital plans within minutes instead of days
  • More robust scenario modelling
  • Nimble reporting on cash flow and balance sheet led to improved distribution of information across operations

“Working with Clear Plan was a good choice for our organisation. They got us exactly what we needed within our required time frame. Now the system does exactly what we want and helps us manage services for approximately 900 service users.”

DAVID SMITH, HEAD OF FINANCIAL, MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE