Allocating over $1 billion from the government's road budget annually is a sizeable responsibility. Transfund New Zealand has recognised that doing this successfully rests partly on high performing systems that allow it to invest funds in initiatives to achieve a world-class roading system for the nation.

Established in 1996, Transfund inherited the accounting and management systems of Transit New Zealand. "We needed to address the move to more strategic front and back-end systems," says Transfund financial controller William Gorrie. "With the assistance of Wang, a customised management system called TAPS was developed in 1998 on the JADE e-business platform - although the interface between this front-end system and our then back-end accounting system (CBA) wasn't as strong as it could have been."

Transfund decided both systems needed to have a common Windows-based interface, so with the assistance of Datacom, sought out a financial package to complement its JADE development and reviewed a number of mid-range packages - including Greentree (who were recently recognised as one of 25 global rising stars by MIS magazine).

"When we stacked Greentree against the other options," says Gorrie, "it offered some outstanding pluses in terms of implementation and cost.  As CBA is also part of the Greentree International stable, there was the obvious ease of converting our existing data to Greentree.

"Typically implementation costs can be double the purchase price of a new system, but we weren't faced with this issue as we were able to migrate our CBA data directly to Greentree. So we were presented the most suitable suite for a fraction of the cost of other packages, but more importantly a low risk option with an easy implementation plan."

The General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Cash Management modules of Greentree were implemented at Transfund. Remote users at the regional offices also have online access to the system using a thin client connection, which has delivered significant improvements in reporting and access to key financial information.

According to Gorrie, Greentree's direct interface with Microsoft Excel allows financial reports to be produced in just six minutes where previously it took a day, freeing up the financial team's time to work on forward planning.

The integration of Greentree and TAPS has allowed Transfund to make inroads into its planned e-commerce initiatives. What was once a laborious manual process for local authorities to make claims, has become web enabled.

Claims are now made via the internet, managed through TAPS, and once the claim is approved, transferred directly into Greentree with payment made to the claimant's bank account. "Greentree International has displayed an openness to user needs," says Gorrie, "unlike some application providers who say that their responsibility stops at the application, they have been supportive in roles beyond the application."

A good example of this, says Gorrie, is if Transfund was having trouble with the network, Greentree International has the expertise in terms of knowing how Greentree runs over the network and have taken a holistic view in terms of support.

"When you first implement a major system," he says, "you can expect some hiccups but these only become a concern if the organisation that can assist with the problems doesn't move on them. Greentree being a new, locally developed system hasn't phased us because of Greentree International's reputation as a strong company with a customer focused commitment in terms of their expertise and ability to act quickly on issues."

May 2004