Unit 4 selected to provide the College's new Finance System

Derwentside College today announced a partnership with UNIT4 Agresso Finance, following a rigorous procurement process.  The College will now implement the Agresso Finance and Procurement system in order to support improvements and developments in its corporate service teams. 

Derwentside College provides high quality education and training opportunities enabling all of its learners to reach their full potential”.UNIT4 Agresso will help it achieve this by providing budget holders with the tools they need to make better informed decisions and to improve the execution of financial strategy.

“In the current climate of fiscal restraint and further education funding cuts, Colleges are increasingly being asked to deliver more and better for less.  The Executive Team here at the College recognise this and through the implementation of Agresso, we believe we are well placed to rise to the challenges that lie ahead, said Chris Todd, Director of Finance and Resources at Derwentside College.

“The incumbent system is QLF which is stable but the move to Agresso will provide us with the latest technology so that we can be more competitive and more modern in our approach to finance operations. Better reporting and flexible work-flows will allow us to embed a more financially aware culture, freeing up resources in order to further invest in the enhancement of the student experience.

The solution will also be more convenient for employees; budget holders for instance, will be able to access the solution via any device no matter where they are. Improved reporting will also provide an enhanced analysis capability so that employees can easily explore valuable and reliable information.

Williams Woodward, UNIT4’s strategic implementation partner for Further Education, will implement the solution using the UNIT4 FE template. The template is based upon good practice in the Further Education sector and will provide Derwentside College with processes for the modern institution straight ‘out of the box’. This implementation methodology will also enable the college to deploy Agresso quickly and painlessly so that it can quickly achieve Return on Investment (RoI).

“We are very pleased to be working with Derwentside College,” said Anwen Robinson, Managing Director of UNIT4 Business Software Ltd. “Its Executive Team has realised that modern technology can help highly skilled staff reduce the time spent on administration and increase the focus on the value added activities they are employed to deliver.”