Tuesday 20th May, 2014

Essex County Council (ECC) has appointed Advanced Computer Software (Advanced) to host its financial management system for the duration of two years. The system currently runs in e5, an industry wide standard that allows organisations to track projects, manage budgets/forecasts and procurement processes.

The contract will enable information to be securely accessed from any connected computers at the same time. It will be available across the council and partner organisations, including Essex Cares and the Essex Pension Fund.

Other managed services included are the printing and mailing more than 340,000 documents per year including invoices, credit notes, dunning letters, cheque and BACS remittance documents.

Advanced will also provide BACS processing and manage more than 1000 payment and collection files each year on behalf of the Council.

As well as receiving a secure service, the Council will also have preferential postal rates that Advanced has agreed with third party postal carriers which will help the Council to save money.

David Wilde, Director for Information Services, Essex County Council, comments: "Having all these services provided by one company makes perfect sense. As well as ensuring we can securely access our financial data across our networks, this contract will help us save money that we can invest in other services."

On 15th May this year, ECC was announced as a finalist for ‘Partnership Work’ in the 2014 Real IT Awards in London.