Bassetlaw District Council utilises Asset4000 from Real Asset Management to comply with guidelines

Bassetlaw District Council has efficiently met its SORP 2007 accounting deadline using the information stored on Asset4000 from Real Asset Management (RAM), effortlessly producing 9,000 fixed asset records with full historical data without the need for any external investigative surveys

Timely Accounting

Bassetlaw District Council manages £280 million worth of fixed assets including land, property and equipment, with Asset4000 (Fixed Asset Management Software) from RAM. Having first implemented the software in 2000 in order to boost efficiency and economy of business processes, Asset4000 now also provides the local authority with everything required to enable SORP 2007 compliance. Tracey Bircumshaw, Principal Technical Accountant at Bassetlaw, says that managing the district council's assets effectively has always been an essential part of its financial planning and accounting. She explains, "With over £280 million of assets under our control, proper management and recording of them is vitally important. These figures form a core part of our end of year reporting and accounts and now they are also central to compliance with SORP 2007."

Situated in north Nottinghamshire, Bassetlaw District Council serves 107,713 residents in and around its two main population centres of Retford and Worksop. In terms of square miles, it is one of the largest district councils in the country, unique in encompassing such a large and historic rural area. With the famous Sherwood Forest within its boundaries, the history of the Bassetlaw district can be traced back to the Doomsday book and beyond with evidence of Roman, Iron Age and Stone Age occupation in the area. Today, the council is focussed on meeting the needs of its population, providing housing, environmental health, economic regeneration and planning, licensing and leisure facilities, while meeting the strict financial targets set by the government.

Bassetlaw selected RAM's Asset4000 in order to centralise and automate the fixed asset register, negating the need for outdated spreadsheets and easing the burden of audits and reconciliation. RAM's Data Import Wizard facilitates the simple transfer of raw data in a range of formats directly onto the fixed asset register. This tool offers a very efficient way of importing new assets and updating existing ones, allowing the user to start utilising the software very quickly. The Data Import Wizard saves users a significant amount of time by eliminating the need to manually enter or update each asset.

RAM is a leading provider of software solutions for the control of fixed assets. Its Series4000 range, of which Asset4000 is a module, has been implemented by over 3,000 organisations in more than 70 countries. It incorporates every aspect of fixed asset accounting, capital project control, lessee asset accounting, asset budgeting, help desk management, inventory control, asset tracking, maintenance management and capital allowance calculations in one comprehensive solution. Series4000 is specifically designed to integrate with the General Ledgers used by UK local authorities.

SORP 2007: Ringing positive changes

For local government bodies, the process of reporting annual accounts and figures is changing. A key document for local authorities is the annual Statement Of Recommended Practice (SORP). The overall objective of SORP is to fairly present the affairs of the local authority and demonstrate that they comply with proper accounting practices, especially with the requirements of SORP in terms of the form and content of the financial accounting statement. "SORP is the local authority mandatory and statutory framework for compiling our annual Statement of Accounts," says Bircumshaw. "Traditionally, these have been put together differently from those of private organisations. Local Authority accounting is developing all the time, as convergence with UK GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals) and in the near future, IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) will require changes to our methods of accounting and system requirements." She adds, "The annual SORP provides us with the statutory framework which ensures compliance with legislation and accounting standards.

One of the biggest changes to the SORP regulations for 2007 from previous versions concerns the introduction of a Revaluation Reserve for each asset. At Bassetlaw, each asset and enhancement to it is recorded on Asset4000 in detail, ensuring an accurate Historic Cost record. Council housing and maintenance works carried out on these properties make up over 80% of Bassetlaw's £280 million assets. The changes to SORP 2007 potentially had major implications for the council and its accounting staff. Bircumshaw comments, "With over 9,000 fixed assets, each with their own historic cost record, we have a great deal of information which needs to be collected and collated in order to review it against their current value. It's essential that we ensure the historic and current cost accounts are available and that each asset has a revaluation reserve." For many local authorities, a particularly challenging aspect of SORP 2007 compliance is ensuring that both historic cost and current cost accounting records are maintained for each individual asset. In the absence of a comprehensive asset register, this task often requires a team of valuation experts to carry out a physical investigative inspection of many of the properties. 

Simple solution

For Bassetlaw the solution was simple. Asset4000 software is fully compliant with the new SORP regulations and the necessary information can be extracted immediately in the required format.

Bircumshaw explains, "Bassetlaw invested in Asset4000 to record and manage our individual fixed assets - land, property, equipment or anything with a value over £10,000. In respect of our assets we set up Asset4000 to detail everything, so if an asset is enhanced- it's all in the register. This makes it extremely simple for us to generate the necessary records in order to comply with SORP 2007."

With 56,535 accurate records stored in Asset4000, Bassetlaw possesses all the historical information on its council house stock to comply with the SORP 2007 regulations. These records also enable the district council to produce accurate matching valuations on each of its 9,000 fixed assets using existing data. Bircumshaw confirms, "Without RAM's software, collating all this information would have been a horrendously labour intensive task. We changed our internal procedures to comply with the SORP regulations and then used the RAM software to deliver it."

Council housing accounts for 80% of the items on the Bassetlaw asset register and the information is updated automatically by the Estates Valuation department. The other 20% of assets are recorded directly into the RAM application. "We have a software tool that is precise and easy to use whilst giving us a totally accurate picture of our assets, (subject to Audit)," says Bircumshaw. "At the end of the financial year, all we do is run a single report and transfer the information straight into our annual accounts. Asset4000 always saves us a lot of time and effort and this year we couldn't have met the SORP 2007 requirements effortlessly without it."