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Maggie’s Centres achieved their objectives of a cost effective, platform independent solution, providing analysis, ease of use, time saving features and remote access.

About Maggie's Centres

Maggie's Centres is a charity providing support for cancer sufferers and carers in a relaxed environment. The aim of Maggie’s Centres is to help people with cancer to be as healthy in mind and body as possible and enable them to make their own contributions to their medical treatment and recovery. Maggie’s Centres have five operating centres in Scotland and a further six are being developed, five of which are to be located in England. The friendly environment of the centres, close in each case to a major cancer hospital treatment centre, invites people to take time out and gives them a non-institutional place they can call their own.

The Situation

“We were using Sage Line 50 on a single stand alone PC for finance and everyone else in the charity was using Macs,” explains Allison Wood, finance director of Maggie's Centres. “This meant that no-one else in the charity had access to the accounting software. As we were restructuring the three entities within the charity into one, we needed a solution that would provide us with the analysis required to report on the three operational areas within one company. We were also implementing a donor management system and were unable to integrate this with Sage to the level we required.”

The Solution

Having evaluated the marketplace, Maggie’s Centres chose Standard ERP because of its flexible analysis, remote access and platform independence. Wood says: “We were constrained by our Mac platform and there appeared to be three options. One of these was a very small company and another was very expensive. [Standard ERP] offered excellent analysis for reporting, the ability to access the system remotely and real value for money. We are now getting the reporting we require, the system integrates with our donor management system and the software is installed on our server at our Edinburgh office but can be accessed from any of our three operational offices.”


“[Standard ERP] offered excellent analysis for reporting, the ability to access the system remotely and real value for money.”

Allison Wood | Finance Director


The charity was under time constraints due to restructuring and impending year end. "We implemented the system within four weeks from decision to purchase. We would have liked to have had more time, but the ease of use of [Standard ERP] ensured we met our go live date,” says Wood. “One of the strengths of the system is the flexibility to rename analysis objects without the problems that are associated with a segmented chart of accounts. We have a very small Chart of Accounts and use the objects within [Standard ERP] extensively for our analysis,” she added.

The Future

Following the successful implementation of Standard ERP, Maggie’s Centres have continued to develop the system with the help of their HansaWorld consultant. Wood says: “She really understands our sector and has assisted us in getting the information and benefits we need from the system. Our next project is to integrate [Standard ERP] with our banking system. This will enable us to pay our suppliers by BACS electronic payment system automatically and will save both time and money.”

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