Paper 3 Annex 1 13 March 2026

Paper 3 Annex 1

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Intern­al Audit

2025 – 26

New Fin­ance Sys­tem Novem­ber 2025

Over­all Conclusion Substantial

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Table of contents

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

New Fin­ance System

Sec­tion

1 EXEC­UT­IVE SUM­MARY (2) 2 BENCH­MARK­ING (11) 3 DETAILED RECOM­MEND­A­TIONS (12) 4 OBSER­VA­TIONS (16) 5 AUDIT ARRANGE­MENTS (17) 6 KEY PER­SON­NEL (18)

Appendix

A GRAD­ING STRUC­TURE (20) B ASSIGN­MENT PLAN (22)

The mat­ters raised in this report came to our atten­tion dur­ing the course of our audit and are not neces­sar­ily a com­pre­hens­ive state­ment of all weak­nesses that exist or all improve­ments that might be made.

This report has been pre­pared solely for Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s indi­vidu­al use and should not be quoted in whole or in part without pri­or writ­ten con­sent. No respons­ib­il­ity to any third party is accep­ted as the report has not been pre­pared, and is not inten­ded, for any third party.

We emphas­ise that the respons­ib­il­ity for a sound sys­tem of intern­al con­trol rests with man­age­ment and work per­formed by intern­al audit should not be relied upon to identi­fy all sys­tem weak­nesses that may exist. Neither should intern­al audit be relied upon to identi­fy all cir­cum­stances of fraud or irreg­u­lar­ity should there be any although our audit pro­ced­ures are designed so that any mater­i­al irreg­u­lar­ity has a reas­on­able prob­ab­il­ity of dis­cov­ery. Every sound sys­tem of con­trol may not be proof against col­lus­ive fraud. Intern­al audit pro­ced­ures are designed to focus on areas that are con­sidered to be of greatest risk and significance.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Over­view

Pur­pose of review

The pur­pose of this assign­ment was to review the imple­ment­a­tion of the new fin­ance sys­tem to assess wheth­er the sys­tem is work­ing as anti­cip­ated. We also reviewed the imple­ment­a­tion pro­cess to assess wheth­er dead­lines and costs were met, and that staff have received suf­fi­cient train­ing on the system.

This review forms part of our ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Intern­al Audit Annu­al Plan.

Scope of review

Our object­ives for this review were to assess whether:

• The new Fin­ance Sys­tem is fit for pur­pose and oper­at­ing in line with good practice.
• Data has been accur­ately trans­ferred from the pre­vi­ous Fin­ance System.
• Suf­fi­cient train­ing has been giv­en to those staff who will be using the new Fin­ance System.
• Appro­pri­ate con­trols have been put in place over the new Fin­ance Sys­tem, and these are being adhered to by staff.

Our approach to this assign­ment took the form of dis­cus­sion with rel­ev­ant staff, review of doc­u­ment­a­tion and where appro­pri­ate sample testing.

Lim­it­a­tion of scope

There was no lim­it­a­tion of scope.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Back­ground

Pre­vi­ous Fin­ance System

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (the Organ­isa­tion) pre­vi­ously used Sage200 as their Fin­ance Sys­tem. How­ever, the Organ­isa­tion believed that the sys­tem was no longer fit for pur­pose. Repla­cing the pre­vi­ous sys­tem had been con­sidered by the Fin­ance Team before the cur­rent Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions first came into post at the end of 2022.

Repla­cing the Old System

The Organ­isa­tion had an intern­al audit (by the pre­vi­ous intern­al aud­it­ors) car­ried out in Octo­ber 2023 to review the pos­i­tion for repla­cing the sys­tem. The intern­al audit report included recom­mend­a­tions to improve the ​‘Busi­ness Case for Replace­ment of Fin­ance Sys­tem’. Con­sid­er­ing the recom­mend­a­tions made with­in the audit report, the Busi­ness Case was adjus­ted and presen­ted to the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee in June 2024. The con­clu­sion of the presen­ted Busi­ness Case was a recom­mend­a­tion to the Com­mit­tee to pur­chase Access Financials.

Timeline

A timeline for imple­ment­a­tion was prepared:

Stage	Imple­ment­a­tion
Sys­tem design	August 2025
Data Pre­par­a­tion	Septem­ber 2025
Install­a­tion	Octo­ber / Novem­ber 2025
Sys­tem set-up	Decem­ber / Janu­ary 2025
Train­ing	Feb­ru­ary / March 2025
Go Live	1 April 2025

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Data Trans­fer

The tar­get for fully trans­ition­ing to the new sys­tem on 1 April 2025 was planned to give enough time for staff to be prop­erly trained ahead of the go live date. The 1 April 2025 date would fall in the middle of the Organisation’s pay run pro­cessing, so to avoid issues caused by mov­ing to the new sys­tem at this time, the go live date was moved to 3 April 2025, with all fin­ances being put through the new sys­tem entirely from 7 April 2025.

To per­form the trans­fer of data from the Sage200 to Access, the data was first extrac­ted from Sage200 into excel format. The Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions then mapped this data to the new cod­ing struc­ture used with­in the Access Fin­an­cials sys­tem. The new sys­tem uses more com­plex cod­ing than the pre­vi­ous sys­tem, allow­ing for costs to be alloc­ated to spe­cif­ic pro­ject streams. This includes codes made of three ​‘parts’:

• Ser­vice — which relate to Run­ning Costs, Oper­a­tion­al Plan deliv­ery and the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme (C2030)
• Pro­ject — Where the code will be assigned to a spe­cif­ic pro­ject with­in an aim of the Oper­a­tion­al Plan, or a pro­ject with­in the C2030 programme. .
• Budget code — a code aligned to a spe­cif­ic line item – for example 50000 is Soft­ware, 70000 is Grant award cap­it­al, and 70130 is Con­sultancy. Once mapped to cod­ing, the data was uploaded to a test envir­on­ment with­in the Access Fin­an­cial sys­tem. Recon­cili­ations were then per­formed on the data held with­in the test envir­on­ment to ensure that the migra­tion was correct.

After the recon­cili­ation of data with­in the test envir­on­ment was com­pleted, the data was then uploaded to the live envir­on­ment of Access Fin­an­cials. Recon­cili­ations were then per­formed again, so that the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions was sat­is­fied that the upload to the live envir­on­ment was accur­ate. Some issues were found at this stage when, on recon­cili­ation between the pur­chase ledger con­trol account in the Nom­in­al ledger and the sup­pli­er accounts in the Cred­it­ors sub-ledger, it was found that some open trans­ac­tions had not been trans­ferred to the Cred­it­ors sub-ledger. The Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions found the exact entries that were not cor­rectly uploaded to the new sys­tem and sent a list of these to Access for invest­ig­a­tion. Access then resolved these issues which meant that final recon­cili­ations could be bal­anced, con­firm­ing that the upload was accurate.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Train­ing

The Organisation’s Fin­ance Team were provided with train­ing by Access on the new sys­tem pri­or to its imple­ment­a­tion. This con­sisted of live walk­through ses­sions with a rep­res­ent­at­ive from Access where there were open dia­logue and spe­cif­ic dis­cus­sions on how to tail­or the cap­ab­il­it­ies of the sys­tem to the needs of the Organ­isa­tion. These were all recor­ded ses­sions which the Fin­ance Team can rewatch at any time.

The Seni­or Man­age­ment Team also received ded­ic­ated train­ing, focused on the cod­ing struc­ture and approv­al work­flow; the fin­an­cial oper­a­tions mod­ule; and the ana­lyt­ics mod­ule with­in the new system.

Staff who are required to raise pur­chase requests through the fin­ance sys­tem received train­ing ses­sions on how to use each area of the pur­chas­ing func­tion with­in the sys­tem, led by the Man­age­ment Account­ant. Addi­tion­ally, ​‘how to’ doc­u­ments have been pre­pared cov­er­ing each type of pur­chase request, allow­ing staff to review the pro­ced­ures where they are unsure.

New Sys­tem Benefits

From our dis­cus­sions with staff and review of the new Fin­ance Sys­tem, we found that it is fit for pur­pose. The new sys­tem is more effi­cient and has reduced the over­all work­load of indi­vidu­al staff. The Organ­isa­tion wanted the sys­tems to enhance budget­ing inform­a­tion avail­able. We held dis­cus­sions with the Fin­an­cial Account­ant, to dis­cuss the enhanced budget­ing fea­tures of the new system.

All budgets are loaded into the sys­tem using an excel tem­plate upload. We noted that the sys­tem allows for lim­ited budget report­ing, whereby pro­ject Budget Hold­ers can view reports show­ing their total budget, their spend each peri­od, their total com­mit­ments, and budget remain­ing. There is no budget report­ing cur­rently avail­able for Run­ning Costs, but this is in devel­op­ment. The reports are inter­act­ive and allow users to expand the report and view the indi­vidu­al trans­ac­tions with­in. Reports show budget codes rel­ev­ant to the budget hold­er. The Fin­an­cial Account­ant delivered train­ing and user guides and has con­firmed that pro­ject Budget Hold­ers can cur­rently run these reports them­selves using the ​‘self-ser­vice’ function.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

The sys­tem includes an ​‘Ana­lys­is’ report­ing mod­ule, which allows author­ised users to view inform­a­tion, such as income, expendit­ure, profit and loss, and cur­rent bank bal­ance. This inform­a­tion can be filtered and sor­ted, look­ing at spe­cif­ic areas or peri­ods. It also provides wide scope for the devel­op­ment of cus­tom report­ing. The fin­ance team are gradu­ally devel­op­ing the skills to allow them to cre­ate their own reports and dashboards.

The Head of Fin­ance and cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions and the Fin­an­cial Account­ant are work­ing with Access to cus­tom design budget reports that are fit for pur­pose. This is a cus­tom­ised func­tion­al­ity. When these devel­op­ments have been imple­men­ted the aim as envis­aged, to enhance the budget­ing inform­a­tion avail­able to the wider staff group, will be met.

Approv­al Workflows

The new sys­tem includes an author­ity approv­al chain mech­an­ism. The users who hold author­ity for approv­ing pur­chases through the fin­ance sys­tem are clearly defined in the Organisation’s Author­isa­tion Work­flow. This doc­u­ment shows the full chain of author­ity relat­ing to each budget code in the sys­tem. It details the rel­ev­ant Budget Hold­er, head of ser­vice, and dir­ect­or for each code, as well as the Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and the Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer, show­ing these would be the end of the approv­al hierarchy.

The Organ­isa­tion has an Out of Office pro­ced­ure where staff in a pos­i­tion to author­ise pur­chase requests are expec­ted to add to the sys­tem when they will be absent and to del­eg­ate their approv­al rights. This helps to ensure that pur­chase requests are passed on to the next per­son in the chain of author­ity. We found that staff must select who they del­eg­ate the respons­ib­il­ity to when they are out of office, but that the sys­tem allows them to del­eg­ate to any indi­vidu­al related to that pro­ject. See Sec­tion 3: Detailed Recom­mend­a­tions for fur­ther information.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Work Under­taken

In line with our object­ives, our work under­taken for this review included the following:

Object­ive 1: The new Fin­ance Sys­tem is fit for pur­pose and oper­at­ing in line with good practice.

• We reviewed the steps under­taken to assess wheth­er the new fin­ance sys­tem would be fit for pur­pose and address the needs of the Organisation.
• We reviewed the Busi­ness Case for Repla­cing Fin­an­cial Sys­tem presen­ted to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee to assess wheth­er all avail­able options were prop­erly explored before reach­ing a conclusion.
• We dis­cussed the use new fin­ance sys­tem with the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions to assess wheth­er it is fit for purpose.

Object­ive 2: Data has been accur­ately trans­ferred from the pre­vi­ous fin­ance system.

• We dis­cussed the Organisation’s pro­cess for data trans­fer from the old sys­tem to Access fin­an­cials with the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations.
• We assessed the data trans­fer pro­cess which the Organ­isa­tion fol­lowed through trans­ition to assess wheth­er there was cor­rect trans­fer of data.
• We reviewed evid­ence of the data recon­cili­ations per­formed to con­firm these were appropriate.

Object­ive 3: Suf­fi­cient train­ing has been giv­en to those staff who will be using the new fin­ance system.

• We reviewed the train­ing con­duc­ted by the Organ­isa­tion sur­round­ing the new fin­ance sys­tem to assess wheth­er this was sufficient.
• We reviewed the ​“How To” guid­ance doc­u­ments pre­pared for staff using the pur­chases func­tion of the system.

Object­ive 4: Appro­pri­ate con­trols have been put in place over the new fin­ance sys­tem, and these are being adhered to by staff.

• We reviewed the con­trols in place over the new fin­ance sys­tem to assess wheth­er there is a clear segreg­a­tion of duties in place.
• We reviewed the access rights in place with­in the new fin­ance sys­tem to assess wheth­er these were appropriate.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Con­clu­sion

Over­all conclusion

Over­all Con­clu­sion: Substantial

Fol­low­ing our review, we can provide Sub­stan­tial assur­ance sur­round­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of the new Fin­ance Sys­tem at the time of the review. We reviewed the pro­cess pri­or to the new sys­tem being imple­men­ted, the trans­ition of data, the train­ing, and the cur­rent use of the sys­tem. While we have raised sev­er­al good prac­tice points, we have raised one medi­um grade recom­mend­a­tion for improve­ment and two obser­va­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion. Please see Sec­tion 3: Detailed Recom­mend­a­tion and Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions respect­ively for fur­ther information.

Sum­mary of recommendations

Grad­ing of recommendations

	High	Medi­um	Low	Total
New Fin­ance System	0	1	0	1

As can be seen from the above table there were no recom­mend­a­tions made which we have giv­en a grad­ing of high.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Areas of good practice

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

1. We com­pleted a walk­through of the Pur­chase Request pro­cess and com­pared this pro­cess to the steps shown in the ​‘how-to’ guid­ance doc­u­ments provided to staff. We found that the guid­ance doc­u­ments clearly detail the pro­cess for rais­ing pur­chases with­in the system.
2. The Organ­isa­tion has clearly defined respons­ib­il­it­ies for all its pro­jects, with ded­ic­ated approv­al work­flows for each with­in the system.
3. Train­ing on the use of the new sys­tem was presen­ted to the Fin­ance Team, Seni­or Man­age­ment and all staff with a pur­chas­ing respons­ib­il­ity, with train­ing ses­sions tailored to the needs of each group.
4. Recon­cili­ations were per­formed through­out the data trans­fer pro­cess, allow­ing the Organ­isa­tion to ensure data uploaded to the new sys­tem was accurate.
5. The SMT received tar­geted train­ing ahead of the new fin­ance system’s go-live through doc­u­ment­a­tion and live-walk­throughs. The ses­sions helped to ensure that SMT under­stood approv­al work­flows, report­ing, and budget management.
6. Train­ing and guid­ance have been provided to help ensure staff can raise pur­chase requests. Mul­tiple train­ing ses­sions were delivered to staff on the dif­fer­ent types of pur­chase request they might need, sup­por­ted by step-by-step ​‘How to’ guides avail­able on the Organ­isa­tion intranet for all pur­chase types.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

1. In 2023, the Organ­isa­tion had an intern­al audit per­formed on the replace­ment of their fin­ance sys­tem. Recom­mend­a­tions made with­in the report were then imple­men­ted by the Organ­isa­tion into its Busi­ness Case for switch­ing sup­pli­ers. This updated Busi­ness Case was then provided to the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee in 2024.
2. Train­ing and engage­ment took place between the fin­ance team and the sys­tem pro­vider, with recor­ded ses­sions cov­er­ing a wide range of fin­ance sys­tem func­tions. Quer­ies were resolved in real time and dis­cus­sions focused on tail­or­ing the sys­tems fea­tures to the needs of the Organ­isa­tion. There were spe­cif­ic ses­sions plan­ning for the go-live and any chal­lenges that may need pre­par­a­tion for in advance. Addi­tion­ally, there are also fur­ther train­ing resources avail­able on Access for the Fin­ance Team to use at any time.
3. From our assess­ment of the fin­ance sys­tem, and our review of the Busi­ness Case developed for its imple­ment­a­tion, we can con­firm that the new sys­tem is fit for purpose.

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2 Bench­mark­ing

We include for your ref­er­ence com­par­at­ive bench­mark­ing data of the num­ber and rank­ing of recom­mend­a­tions made for audits of a sim­il­ar nature in the most recently fin­ished intern­al audit year.

New Fin­ance System

Bench­mark­ing

	High	Medi­um	Low	Total
Aver­age num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions in sim­il­ar audits	0	0	1	1
Num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority	0	1	0	1

From the table above it can be seen that the Organ­isa­tion has the same num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions com­pared to those organ­isa­tions it has been bench­marked against, although the dis­tri­bu­tion dif­fers, with a great­er pro­por­tion of medi­um grade recommendations.

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3 Detailed recommendations

Out-of-Office Pur­chas­ing