Calxa Case Study – OONAH (formerly HICSA)

OONAH Health & Community Services Aboriginal Corporation (formerly known as Healesville Indigenous Community Services Association (HICSA)) is one of the latest recipients of donated budgeting software from Connecting Up.

Simplifying Reporting Process

The software, Calxa Premier, will simplify their budgeting and reporting process, saving time and resources. This can then be redirected and focused on service delivery. Fiona Mawson’s role focuses strongly on Governance and says,

“Calxa has made a great improvement to our board reporting. I can lock off the approved budgets and provide our board with variance reports for all projects each month.”

“The best part is they know the reports are accurate as there is no room for accidental formula overrides or missing a row.”

Connecting Up Donatioin Program

Connecting Up, also a not-for-profit organisation, provides donated and discounted technology products to Australian not-for-profit groups. Donations and subsidies range from international companies such as Microsoft and Cisco as well as Symantec. The only Australian company currently providing donations is Calxa Australia. Calxa has pledged $2,000,000 of donations of their flagship product, Calxa Premier, to grassroots community groups around Australia and New Zealand.

Calxa founders Mick Devine and Alex Lewis have had a long history of involvement with not-for-profits, both as board members and in business advisory roles. Mick says

“When we started Calxa it was very important to us to meet one of our goals of making a contribution to the not-for-profit sector. We do that by providing tools that save time, increase transparency and improve governance. However, we were also aware that no matter what good value these tools were, some organisations just wouldn’t be able to afford them. We had worked with DonorTec before, getting donations for other organisations we worked with and it seemed the natural fit for Calxa. Connecting Up have provided us with a way of helping smaller community organisations to access the technology that bigger organisations take for granted.”

Budgeting and Project Reporting Vitally Important

Like most community organisations, budgeting and program reporting is vitally important to OONAH. There are regular reports to the board so that they can clearly understand the current financial situation and there are grant acquittals to be completed for funding providers. Calxa Premier makes this easier by integrating directly with the accounting system. This way, it eliminating the need for complex spreadsheets and the importing and exporting of data. It has a range of structured, yet flexible, reports that are understandable to accountants and non-accountants alike.

So far, the donations of Calxa software have gone to a wide variety of organisations. Some, like the White Ribbon Foundation and Glaucoma Australia are national organisations with a high profile. Others, are sporting organisations and arts centres. Whilst, some are day care centres and aboriginal corporations. The majority though, are grassroots organisations, dedicated to providing support to the communities in which they work – much like the OONAH Health & Community Services Aboriginal Corporation. Simplifying the reporting process is a big step towards helping these not-for-profits.