The Access Group

Access Abacus Social Care Finance System

Abacus social care finance software integrates with a range of case management systems. It can reduce your administrative workload by as much as 80% to generate big cost savings while enabling you to focus on providing care.

An intuitive, integrated system, that automates processes, provides user-friendly workflows and financial reporting.

Features

• Abacus Residential
• Abacus Non Residential
• Abacus Residential & Non Residential
• Abacus Children's Module
• Abacus Direct Payments
• Abacus Self Directed Support
• Abacus Provider Portal Residential & Non Residential
• Abacus Provider Portal Residential
• Abacus Provider Portal Non Residential

Benefits

• Save money on all aspects of social care financial management
• Avoid overpayment with automatic invoice checking
• Save time by eradicating manual processes and duplicate data entry
• Reduce postage, printing and paper costs
• Improve data quality and reduce telephone queries
• Get software updates before legislative deadlines
• Produce clear management reports for use during any disputes
• Get faster and more accurate payments
• Improve cash flow, as invoice queries are resolved faster
• Reduce the number and value of disputed payments

£510 to £8,900 a user a year

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

911229322316678

Contact

Access UK
01206322575
tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: Stand alone, integrated with ANY case management solution or Add on to Mosaic Case Management System.
• Cloud deployment model: Private cloud
• Service constraints: Planned maintenance arrangements
• System requirements:
  • End-user facing elements of the solution are accessed via web-browser
  • Supported by, Windows, macOS, iOS and Android
  • No additional software or plug-ins are required on client devices
  • There are no additional licensing implications

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Access has developed a range of support plans. Our online Knowledge base and Community service plans are available to all our clients. We have made significant investment in our client support tools. The Success portal provides around the clock access to log incidents, browse articles and videos to find solutions. Our Support teams are available M-F 8-6. On these plans P1 cases are responded to in 30 minutes. Please refer to Access for further details.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Basic Success Plan - provides you with an on-line support experience with on-line support case submission and self-service Knowledge Base access. No additional cost. Standard Success Plan- offers an enhanced reactive service, including telephone and e-mail support, as well as priority response times and longer support hours. Larger customers will also get access to a primary named support analyst who will deal with the majority of your support questions. Charged at 15% of your subscription fee. Premier Success Plan- provides proactive services, including access to a customer success manager with quarterly and annual review. Charged at 25% of your annual subscription fee.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Access offers the following system training:; ; • Abacus Familiarisation; • Workshop Preparation; • Finance Familiarisation; • System Administration; • Workflow; • Train the Trainer; • Abacus Provider Portal (where applicable); • Go-Live Guidance; ; As new versions of our software are released, our guidance is updated and new guidance produced to highlight and explain any new functionality.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Access provides a data schema for each version of Abacus and this is available to customers to allow the extraction of data into a required format. If the customer prefers; it could commission Access to extract the data into .csv files. Costs for this service can be provided on request.
• End-of-contract process: Access' approach to decommissioning is to work with the Authority to meet its objectives and ensure any move to a new supplier is smooth and simple. Data is provided to the customer in the agreed format. Any technical involvement in script writing from Access is normally chargeable however advice and support can be provided until the contract end date. The data is deleted securely when the customer has agreed all data has been provided and drives holding the data are securely cleansed. Access can provide an Exit Management Plan to highlight the steps involved in decommissioning the Abacus application.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Android
  • Windows
  • Windows Phone
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: When used on Windows, iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, screens are drawn in a way that is responsive to the device size. Native finger-friendly device functions such as date pickers are used by default.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Services are configurable to meet the needs of the finance structure required.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Proactive monitoring of the platform is provided using Opman / Appman by ManageEngine. Where a server or other component is deemed to be nearing the threshold requiring additional resource the issue is rectified.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Service metrics are provided in the form of call lists which users can filter on calls outstanding either by call reference, created date range, call status, name of reporter, assignee and summary. Customers can log in to the online support portal to view this information as and when required at no additional cost. ; Service measurements are used internally to monitor performance accordingly. ; Reporting of SLA performance and KPIs can also be provided.
• Reporting types: Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Access provides access to the Abacus database allowing data to be extracted and interrogated via industry standard third party reporting and business intelligence tools. Supporting documents (Entity Relationship Diagrams and Data Dictionary are provided to support).; All reports run via the client application can be exported to Microsoft Excel and saved in the desired format. Where a specific format is required for a return submission, Access provides this in addition to tables to allow data validation prior to submission.
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • XML
  • XLS
  • DOC

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Abacus availability will be 99.5% within hours of operation as per our standard SLA.
• Approach to resilience: Available on request
• Outage reporting: Access utilises industry standard monitoring solutions which immediately alert our teams to a service outage. Contact with customers is made via telephone or email to agree contacts.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We operate role profile based Access Control - based on least privilege access. This applies to all our services
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication: Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 01/09/2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Nothing is excluded from the Standard
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All controls included within Annex A of the ISO27001:2013 standard. Statement Of Applicability (SOA) available on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All change management is undertaken in line with ISO27001:2013 using JIRA for audit purposes.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: We provide quarterly internal scans and annual scans by external parties against the infrastructure which feeds into our Cyber Essentials certification.; ; Our internal hosting policies define that the solution and hosted environment are tested for vulnerabilities regularly with a view to nullify threats, vulnerabilities and exploitation techniques. Penetration tests are conducted by an independent organisation to verify security.; ; Results of the tests are resolved by making a development change or making configuration changes to the hosted platform. In either case, the fixes are made based on priority according to the nature of the software and hosting methods.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure level. We keep daily historical reports from servers which provide the facility to identify when changes occurred. We proactively monitor third party suppliers vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. We patch any vulnerabilities found in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-8pm Monday – Friday.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: We operate a robust incident management process in line with ISO27001:2013 Staff are encouraged to report all incidents using a pre-defined process using a form available on our Company Collaborate site Incident reports will be provided following forensics and closure

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Access UK Limited is a Software author and provide associated services, including Hosting, Payroll Bureau and Payment services. We recognise that although we do not undertake manufacturing, our day to day operations will have impact on the environment at global, national, and local level. We are committed to the care of the environment and the prevention of pollution. •Access ensures that all our operations are carried out in with the minimum adverse effect on the environment but implementing many available resources and approved processes •We protect the environment by striving to prevent and minimise our contribution to pollution of land, air, and water •We keep wastage to a minimum and maximise the efficient use of materials and resources, and manage disposal of all waste in a responsible manner •We use energy, water, and natural resources wisely and prevent pollution by minimising waste, recycling whenever possible and properly disposing of waste that cannot be recycled. •Our management processes are developed to ensure that environmental factors are considered during planning and implementation •We raise employee awareness and encourage best practices for sustainability at work

  Equal opportunity

  We want everyone to feel at home at Access, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual; after all, if we were all the same it would be a pretty dull place. We love the fact that we’re all different. Having more diverse perspectives at work improves how we run our business, helps us support our customers, and when you think about it, it's just more fun. For us, this all starts with helping everyone feel part of the family and being at their best every day, making Access a place where everyone can love what they do and do what they love. We all have regular check-ins with our leaders, take part in monthly employee surveys, have lots of chances to share our views and ask for help, and with our own learning system, 'Access Shine', we really can make things even better each and every day. At Access we'll always hire the best candidate but we're continually looking for creative ways to increase the mix of diverse candidates into our recruitment process. On the basis that you ‘have to see it, to be it’, one thing we're doing is sharing more stories to celebrate the wonderful diverse range of talent we have at Access. It is important for us that our employees understand and reflect the customers and communities we support, and we want everyone to feel at home here, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual.

  Wellbeing

  Access places specific emphasis on the health and wellbeing of its staff and provides a “Well-being” hub in workspace that provides support for Mental Health, Finances, Social, Physical, Emotional and purpose. Assistance from Health Assured is available for all staff and there are training resources for “working in the new normal” and “Mental health and wellbeing” . Access also has “well-being” champions throughout the organisation. This is supported by monthly employee “check in” surveys and offers of flexible working for staff to meet caring commitments.

Pricing

• Price: £510 to £8,900 a user a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.