Real Asset Management has been helping Cardiff Community Housing Association with its compliance with continually-evolving SORP regulations and component accounting.
When the SORP regulations initially changed in 2010, CCHA was using Open Accounts combined with Excel spreadsheets to keep track of its assets. Not only was this time-consuming, it was susceptible to human error as well.
Paul Westwood, fixed asset accountant, Cardiff Community Housing Association, said, “We had to decide how we could manage our data better and keep it secure. We decided that a fully-automated system would not only be far easier to use, but it would give us a more detailed audit trail of all our assets and help us with component accounting.”
CCHA reviewed a number of asset management systems, including combined finance and asset packages and Open Accounts’ own fixed asset module. In the end, the housing provider chose Real Asset Management’s Asset4000 systems for its flexibility, ease of use, depth of functionality and integration with most accounting systems, including Open Accounts.
Westwood said, “Asset4000 has extensive component accounting functionality and quickly provides us with the data we require. It also enables us to have a clear audit trail so if mistakes are made we can trace them, fix them and put in place procedures to prevent them from recurring.
“Real Asset Management has made our asset management process both seamless and reliable, while saving us considerable time. We are now confident that our data is 100 per cent accurate and that we continue to comply with all SORP regulations, including SORP 2014 and the forthcoming FRS 102.”
CCHA has also implemented Real Asset Management’s Forecast4000 system which uses the data from Asset4000 for acquisition and disposal projections to enable it to calculate depreciation for any point in the future.
Westwood said, “We have really benefited from the real-time aspect of Asset4000 which provides us with information when we need it. And with Forecast4000, we can plan capital programmes without affecting the base data.
“You can theoretically do the same thing with a spreadsheet but it would be very time-consuming and complicated. Forecast4000 makes this process a lot simpler and we can easily separate data to consider options for specific asset categories and budgets.”
