Part of this project involved looking for a tool to help with the charity’s approval process. Previously, the team used a Word document to track and approve invoices; for each invoice people would have to fill in the form with invoice details such as: supplier, invoice number, amount, cost account and department where it should be coded, and add their signature, then email it back-and-forth for to get further approval from budget-holder or Director.

With up to 40 team members responsible for 200 incoming invoices per month, this process couldn’t keep up with the pace of the organisation. Muscular Dystrophy UK has approval delegation of authority thresholds in place to manage who approves what amounts, such as invoices over under £500 or over £10,000. However, this was confusing for team members to follow using the old process so directors were often bombarded with emails for all approvals.

“It wasn’t a very well-designed system. Especially from an audit perspective, the system was deeply flawed, as all the directors' signatures were stored in a Word document, and it could be easily manipulated,” says Krzyzanowski.

Muscular Dystrophy UK turned to Farnell Clarke in late 2023 for help moving to its new finance tech stack of Xero and ApprovalMax, with the aim of going live in the new financial year. Despite the complexity of the charity’s workflows and audit requirements, the new system was up and running in just a week.

Everything is now managed in the cloud with this new tech stack. Individual team members are responsible for uploading invoices to be paid into ApprovalMax, where they’re automatically routed to the correct finance team member or director for approval. Then, bills are compiled into a batch payment which is paid weekly.

The charity has embraced the new system. “I was worried about how our team would react but we’ve only received positive feedback. They’re relieved they don’t need to manually email back-and-forth,” says Krzyzanowski. “Everything is done by the budget holders so the workload is spread. Now, if you forgot to submit an invoice it's only your fault – the sooner you deal with it, the better. This has made our life in finance less stressful.”