Document Logistix provide accurate audit trails for Asthma UK

Asthma UK is a charity dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the 5.4 million people in the UK whose lives are affected by asthma.

The charity is the largest independent funder of research into asthma in the UK. It funds approximately £3 million of research annually and works directly with asthma sufferers, schools, healthcare professionals and parents to share expertise to reduce the impact of asthma on people’s lives.

Like many organisations Asthma UK had historically relied on a loosely structured paper filing systems for its records management. This dispersed and fragmented system did not provide the efficient retrieval of documents that the charity was obligated to provide HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) during auditing of its Gift Aid claims. With the paper filing system, the Charity was unable to easily provide a complete audit trail for each of its Gift Aid claims because it was almost impossible to quickly link an individual claim to all the relevant paper records.

Asthma UK entered a formal process to procure a document management software system that would address the challenge of providing the accurate audit trails required to secure its Gift Aid tax claims. The charity decided upon the Document Management system because of its flexibility, strong functionality and the system’s integration into the charity’s Raiser’s Edge database. The software would enable all incoming Gift Aid documentation to be efficiently scanned, indexed and linked to other business applications. Asthma UK were also impressed with the responsiveness and high levels of expertise demonstrated by the product support team.

Benefits of Document Manager:

1. Elimination of unstructured paper records

2. Improvement of Gift Aid audit trails

3. Massive savings in document retrieval times

4. Elimination of paper, freeing up valuable office space

5. Easy integration with existing charity management systems

6. Users find the software very simple to use

The Document Manager system provides Asthma UK staff with a fully secure and instantly searchable audit trail of every document related to each Gift Aid claim. The solution is fully integrated to the charity's existing database systems, which saves staff a significant amount of time by providing the ability to reconcile the scanned Gift Aid claim images all the way back to the original donor name within the charity database called Raiser’s Edge.

Where in the past it would possibly take a staff member an entire day to manually locate the information required to justify a Gift Aid claim from thousands of records stored in archive boxes, this retrieval process now happens in seconds. Manually sorting through paper records has been entirely eliminated.

Staff are now able to quickly locate all the documents needed to verify the validity of claims and the charity is now able to confidently make its Gift Aid claims knowing it has a fully secure and reliable system with no likelihood of reclaims from HMRC.

As part of the installation project, Document Logistix arranged the secure collection and delivery of documents from Asthma UK’s head office for scanning by their inhouse Scanning Bureau. In order to meet their tight deadline and also satisfy Customs and Excise audit, the bureau scanned approximately 175,000 Gift Aid Forms within six weeks, thereby providing Asthma Uk the ability to make claims for gift aid tax reimbursement for that year.

Asthma UK were “very satisfied” within the efficiency of the installation project and are impressed with the ongoing performance and stability of their solution.

“The Document Manager system provides Asthma UK staff with a fully secure and instantly searchable audit trail of every document related to each Gift Aid claim – potentially saving the charity hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum”, said Gregory Yakub, I.T. Director of Operations.