Jill Morris and Mark Sharples from our Cloud Accounting team spent time with Blackburn Foodbank’s finance team to get to know the charity and its work within the community, and to understand the challenges it faced.

The charity had previously used more traditional methods of financial record-keeping that was no longer suitable for its purposes, becoming increasingly inefficient to maintain and report on. As regulatory demands also changed over time, the need for more robust and compliant record-keeping also became an issue. PM+M were engaged to provide a solution to this problem.

As a Platinum Champion Partner with industry-leading cloud accounting platform Xero, we were able to implement a comprehensive solution tailored to meet the charity’s needs, using many of the features offered by Xero such as its powerful reporting suite, automated bank feeds and collaborative approach to record-keeping. By utilising tracking categories to manage and report on Gift Aid declarations and funding sources, the system we put in place met the challenges faced by the client that complimented their way of working.

Our skilled team also provided training to the finance team at the client’s premises, using the time to demonstrate the features of Xero and focus on key areas relevant to the charity. By getting to know the client through the process, we were able to answer the questions the finance team had and conclude the training assured of their confidence in using the system.

Going forward, we endeavour to continue to support our client in their use of the system we implemented and work with them as they strive to serve the local community.