“We love the transparency and flexibility of Business Central. Everything is accurate, trackable, and auditable.”

Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The Organisation:
Mingara Leisure Group is a not-for-profit organisation that operates five registered clubs within New South Wales, comprising Port Macquarie, The Entrance, Roselands, Blue Mountains, and the original club of Mingara on the Central Coast. Mingara began life in 1971 when a meeting of locals identified the need for a community club. The purpose they specified, which still stands true today, was:

To provide a significant contribution to the quality of community life.

Through this statement, Mingara Leisure Group work to give back to the community through the facilities they have available, inviting in and reaching out to the community, and providing resources to support the community.

Mingara Leisure Group has over 400 employees, 90% of whom are the front facing staff in the various clubs. Whilst all the clubs operate independently with their own general managers and teams, Mingara Leisure Group resides across the top of the groups, bringing them all together and providing support services, finance, group marketing, high level property services, and ICT.

The Need:
Mingara Leisure Group had been using the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution of Microsoft Dynamics GP for more than a decade, supported by Professional Advantage (PA) from implementation. This solution was one of the areas the organisation identified would benefit from re-evaluation, as was their purpose-built reporting solution; Dynamics GP was directly linked to this solution.

“We knew we wanted to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for our ERP needs, and PA then suggested the fully integrated Solver for our reporting requirements.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

You can read our case study about Mingara Leisure Group and Solver here.

You can also read our case study with Mingara Leisure Group discussing how their Dynamics 365 Business Central and Solver solutions work together and benefit the organisation here.

The Solution:
Mingara Leisure Group knew very early on that they wanted to migrate from Dynamics GP to Business Central. It suited their needs, and the transition for users would not be a major change.

“Our preference was staying with Microsoft, especially as we transitioned our processes to the cloud. When we looked at other solutions, they were more complicated than what we needed. Business Central was a no-brainer.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

Whilst choosing Business Central was easy, the process of selecting PA as their solution partner was more detailed and diligent, beginning with sending proposal requests to three different organisations. In addition to relevant questions, these requests outlined Mingara Leisure Group’s strategy and vision to help ensure any partner organisation was a holistic match.

“Hands down it was PA.

The long-term relationship really made a difference to us: they knew us, we knew them, we were very comfortable with them, we knew we could work with them, and we knew they had the experience required.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The tenure of the relationship was also a crucial factor when staff within Mingara Leisure Group moved on.

“PA were able to support us through major staff transitions. It was not worthwhile to spend the time training another partner organisation on our business before we could start a project when PA already knew everything.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The Results:
Immediately, Mingara Leisure Group identified the benefits that better visibility and tracking brought to their processes. Previously, they were operating a paper-based system working in a solution that was only accessed by the finance team. The workflow of an invoice was manual—which of course resulted in human-error—with multiple touchpoints before ending within the accounts team. There was little visibility or tracking over the journey of an invoice, and an inability to identify and chase up potential bottlenecks.

“We now have complete visibility over our invoices. We can see who is sending invoices, at what stage they are in approval, and what is due in the coming weeks and months. This has given us a new level of cash flow prediction.”

Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

These new processes have also minimised human error, eliminating delays that would have been caused by chasing corrections.

“If an invoice had an error, it would need to be sent back for correction, meaning we would lose visibility of it. With Business Central, these processes are automated and completely tracked.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

Moving from a paper-based to online system has also improved efficiencies in filing, storing, and preparing for audits.

“Everything is now online. The time spent on manual filing has decreased by at least 2 hours a month, reducing storage by 5 folders a month, and has saved 1 day a year in archiving.

Audits are now so much easier. We can just go into the system and retrieve any invoice needed immediately.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

Moving all of their data to the cloud has allowed for the creation of automated workflows. No longer is the finance team required to manually follow up on accounts and invoices.

“Within Business Central, we now have workflows set up to automatically send invoices on their approval and processing journey, and to manage reminder emails and notifications. This has saved us 2 hours a week.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

There is a broader user group for Business Central within Mingara Leisure Group than there was for the previous system. This has been made possible in part by the ease of use of the system.

“Flexible, user friendly, intuitive, and logical is how I would describe Business Central. Everything you need is in a menu and the system is easy to understand. If you are struggling, the search bar is incredibly effective.”

Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

By having more of the organisation using Business Central, people no longer need to go to the finance team for their knowledge.

“Our team can now self-serve. Our accounts information is available 24/7, rather than ‘business’ hours. This is especially important in a club environment as our managers work irregular shifts.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

Whilst users outside of finance do not need to understand all the intricacies of the system, they have enough knowledge to be able to explore an invoice in its entirety.

“We can drill down and get the full details of an invoice. This gives greater transparency of our costs and what they relate to.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The system usability and 24/7 remote access is important for answering questions and providing information in un-planned scenarios, and for accountability.

“Our team have the knowledge and access to answer questions and provide information live, for example, in meetings. They are also able to create more meaningful budgets and predictions because they have all the data available to them. This means there is accountability for what has and will happen.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

An added bonus of the Business Central migration with PA was the project management and budget.

“At the end of the project, we were 25% under budget.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The Future:
Mingara Leisure Group have already begun to identify areas of Business Central within which they can expand, develop, and grow into the future.

“We are already looking into the jobs module, and how we can use the fixed assets module more effectively.

We know there is a lot of scope for this solution in the future.”
Cathy Studte, Project Accountant, Mingara Leisure Group.

The implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with Professional Advantage was the catalyst for the organisation selecting Solver for their reporting needs. You can read their Solver case study here.

You can also learn about how Business Central and Solver work together in this case study, and the relationship between Mingara Leisure Group and Professional Advantage in this client story.