World Challenge organises international tours for students, who get to experience exciting parts of the world in a safe, well-supported environment. MYOB Advanced provides a cost-effective business system with an emphasis on user-friendly payroll management.
Needs had outgrown the system
World Challenge started back in 1985, and takes over 8,000 students on expeditions to over 40 destinations every year. Its work is strongly influenced by seasonal factors and its payroll fluctuates accordingly.
World Challenge’s offices in Australia and New Zealand manage multiple companies with a complex GL structure and its staff numbers will vary between 40 and 100, depending on the time of year and the expeditions its running. Organising group travel events, with all the associated costs, is a challenge for any financial system. There are numerous expenses to track, along with transactions in foreign currencies.
“We’d been using MYOB AccountRight for a number of years and we’d simply outgrown it,” says World Challenge’s Australian Finance Manager, Shaye Franks. “It only allowed access for one login at a time, it was slow and cumbersome and didn’t provide the reporting capabilities we required.”
World Challenge went looking for a system that could handle all the various sub-accounts in its GL, combined with reliable HR and Payroll management. A cloud-based system was another priority, for scalability and cost saving.
“Our legacy system was slow and cumbersome.”
Easy to access and fully integrated
MYOB Advanced was chosen for its multiple ledger capabilities that enabled consolidated reporting and eliminated the complexities of managing various intercompany transactions. Advanced has given World Challenge the functionality it needed, at a price it could afford.
“It’s great to be able to access the system in the cloud from anywhere,” says Shaye. “Not having to worry about servers and backups gives us peace of mind, and saves us money.”
Shaye also praises Advanced for its user-friendliness and reporting capabilities: “Without training you can easily navigate through and understand the different areas and processes. The drill-through in reporting and being able to attach files and comments has helped us with audit trails.”
“Its great to be able to access the system in the cloud from anywhere.”
Flexibility where it counts most
The Advanced People module stores all the payroll data. It’s easily configurable, to fit a wide variety of employee scenarios, and live data that can be manipulated to cover any special reporting needs.
Advanced has also streamlined the handling of employee records – a vital function when employing so much seasonal and casual labour. It delivers management a single view of every employee, rather than having to search through multiple records. The integration of MYOB People allows World Challenge to assign granular posting classes to the employee, to ensure they are costed to the correct department, programme and tour.
World Challenge prides itself on delivering safe, rewarding travel experiences for young people. Its highly experienced staff in the field are supported by skilled support people, aided by a reliable back-office system that enables comprehensive management and reporting.
“We know there’s still a lot more we can do with Advanced,” Shaye concludes. “We’re looking forward to further exploring its reporting and dashboard functions.”
“We know there’s still a lot more we can do with Advanced.”
Source: This article was originally sourced from MYOB
