How Xero can transform your not-for-profit: United Fire Brigades’ Association

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Running a non-profit is a labour of love. Xero can free up your time by streamlining tasks and increasing your efficiency. Xero also offers all not-for-profits a 25% discount.

We’re thrilled to support the joint project by United Fire Brigades’ Association (UFBA) and Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) in bringing the financial systems of its brigades and rural fire forces over to Xero. Volunteers are the lifeblood of essential services across the country.

The change will be rolled out over the next 12-24 months, in partnership with Grant Thornton, the UFBA’s accounting firm. We spoke to Barry Baker, from Grant Thornton, about this initiative.

Tell me a bit about your journey with Xero

We’ve been with Xero for about 10 years now. Although we were slow to warm to it at first, the functionality grew rapidly and it soon became a no brainer that Xero was the platform to use for most not-for-profits. Once we got the hang of it, it was really easy to transfer our knowledge on to our clients. So we changed our local practice to Xero for pretty much everything, and we’re now part of the fan club.

One of your clients is the UFBA. How do you think they could benefit by implementing Xero across their organisation?

There are about 560 brigades and rural fire forces across the country, and we are helping get all of them onto Xero. We’ve currently got about 170 in the process of implementing Xero.

The biggest benefit to them is Xero is so easy to use, so they will save time. A lot of stations are currently using Excel, or cash books, and spend a lot of time doing their books or inputting data. Using Xero, all they have to do is click a few buttons.

By using Xero, where everything is linked to your bank account and the data entry is automated, all they will have to do is log in once or twice a week and reconcile the transactions. They should also find it easy to generate reports, analyse how they’re operating, and to help with their Charity Services / FENZ annual reporting requirements.

How will the role of a Brigade Treasurer change?

It will really reduce the burden for them. A lot of non-profits are struggling because so many people want to do the role, yet they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. So by having an easy-to-use, time-saving system, the role of the Brigade Treasurer will become a lot simpler. They can then focus their time less on data entry, and more on making decisions and helping with the running of the fire brigade or rural fire force. The time they’ll save on administrative work means they can spend more of their valuable volunteering time on activities that directly serve their communities – like call outs.

What unique challenges could Brigades or Rural Fire Forces encounter when they implement Xero?

Many Brigade Treasurers find the accounting process time consuming and painful. But treasurers are picking Xero up so quickly and they are so open to all the different things that Xero can do for them. We just have to give them a quick demo of how it works, and they are impressed by how much time it can save them.

Xero also gives the Brigade or Rural Fire Force a lot more visibility. If a Treasurer receives a question, they can just log in and find out the answer. In the past, they wouldn’t have had access to data in that way.

Even though Xero is an easy to use software, it is still an accounting system, and Grant Thornton have developed some excellent training tools, such as the personalised Xero manual, face-to-face training and a library of short how-to downloadable videos.

The conversion process to Xero, to capture historic data and balances from other or no accounting systems was a thorny problem but between Grant Thornton and the Xero specialist team, this process is now efficient and well documented.

What the UFBA thinks

Jane Davie, Membership Support, United Fire Brigades’ Association, says reducing the burden of administration in brigades and rural fire forces across the country is a key initiative for FENZ.

“Adoption of a common general ledger structure and reporting requirements for volunteer brigades/rural fire forces will bring efficiency to financial processes and make it feasible for the UFBA to provide centralised support and advice.”

Plimmerton Volunteer Fire Brigade Treasurer Johnny Johnston is pleased with this initiative. “This is a very positive move by the United Fire Brigades’ Association in standardising the accounting and reporting systems for all volunteer brigades. Already being on Xero has given us a head start, as it were, and anything that makes this, or indeed any future treasurer’s life easier, is just fine by me.”

Volunteers such as Johnny put in hours and hours of what can be thankless work each week. Introducing Xero across the board will reduce administration for volunteers who have to meet stringent and regular reporting requirements.

Find out more about Xero for not-for-profits.

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