Ipswich Borough Council selects integrated asset management solution to control £400 million worth of assets

Local Council implements Series4000 from RAM to streamline process, ensure compliance and strengthen reporting capabilities for its 9000 fixed assets

Ipswich Borough Council, the local authority serving over 122,000 residents across the borough, has selected Real Asset Management's (RAM) Series4000 software to improve the management of over £400 million worth of fixed assets. The purchase includes; Asset4000, Project4000 and Document4000 and will assist the Council with compliance to both SORP and IFRS legislation by providing an asset register that meets component level accounting standards, streamlining business processes and enabling staff to work more efficiently.

Ipswich Borough Council manages a variety of fixed assets including; land, buildings, parks and over 8,000 in housing stock. Prior to purchasing RAM's Series4000, the Council was using an access databases to record assets. Following the new IFRS and SORP regulations, asset management has become increasingly complex, and as a result the Council made the decision to upgrade its system. Series4000 will provide the Council with a centralised and fully automated means of accurately storing and managing complete fixed asset data, enhancing operative effectiveness and reducing running costs.

Series4000 offers Ipswich Borough Council the ability to streamline business processes through direct integration with its existing accounting package. A spokesman at Ipswich Borough Council, comments, "Our existing asset management process requires extensive manual data entry particularly for financial year-end reporting. The Series4000 solution will interface with our Agresso accounting software, enabling data to automatically transfer between solutions, affording the finance team a complete and robust accounting system, critically reducing time-intensive tasks and enabling staff to work more efficiently."

Compliance with mandatory accounting legislation such as IFRS and SORP was a key decision-maker for the Council when considering the software purchase. The Council spokesman explains, "With IFRS requiring us to be compliant by year-end 2010/2011, we immediately required greater control over our assets - the aim being to achieve both component level accounting and substantiation of our balance sheet. Series4000 guarantees the Council compliance by achieving the level of detail required to meet the terms of the legislation."

The Series4000 solution includes the Document4000 module, which enables Ipswich Borough Council to store all relevant associated information against the appropriate asset for ease of access and speedy retrieval. Documents such as contracts, licences, spreadsheets, photographs, quotes, drawings and indeed, almost any form of electronic file, may be linked with the individual asset record, enabling the Council to make informed decisions regarding that item, including scheduling maintenance and understanding full asset history.

The Council spokesman adds, "Ipswich Borough Council selected the system from Real Asset Management due to its excellent reputation amongst existing users in Councils across the UK. This demonstrated to us that RAM would be able to provide us with a secure and robust system which is specifically tailored to meet the Council's needs, as well as offering expertise in the area of capital accounting."

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