The Woodland Trust Charity

The Woodland Trust is the UK's largest woodland conservation charity. They aim to continually create new woodland with the help of communities, schools, organisations and individuals.

They work to protect our precious ancient woods, restore the ones that are damaged and fight for those under threat.

The charity does this by inspiring people up and down the country to visit woods, plant trees, and enjoy the many benefits that woodland has to offer.

Paper Storage Space

An upcoming move to a new, more modern building with less storage space prompted the organisation to start evaluating document management solutions.

The charity wanted to digitise their legal documents in a format legally accepted by the courts. They needed to securely store these documents with specific retention periods. They also inquired about streamlining the way they processed their gift aid forms.

A solution that could integrate with other key systems such as their CRM and accounting systems, as well as provide home-based employees with easy access to important information over the internet were important considerations.

DocTech's Solution

The Woodland Trust team selected DocTech to implement their document management software because the solution met all their business aims and legal requirements.

It would help them reduce document storage space and could be customised to their unique needs.

A Paperless Charity

As a charity dedicated to woodland conservation, moving toward a paperless office was an obvious goal.

DocuWare was initially rolled out to the legal department to manage and store land acquisition documents, alongside legacy documents containing the details of an individual’s donation as part of their estate after death.

The ease of searching for documents using DocuWare urged the charity to expand DocuWare’s use to include: direct debit donation mandates and gift aid declarations. These forms allow an individual to declare that they are a UK taxpayer and donate the income tax previously paid on the donation to charity.

This form allows the charity to collect an additional 25% of the value of the gift from the tax office as additional revenue. A donation of £100 would result in an additional £25 of income for the charity. This is important data they are required to record and keep.

What Benefits Did We Provide?

A better way to manage Gift Aid declaration forms, ensuring The Woodland Trust keep track of an important source of income
Audits have been simplified as Gift Aid forms and other important legal documentation are securely stored and can easily be found
Integration with their CRM, Advanced NG means once a donor is located in their CRM, all related documents can be easily accessed streamlining the two systems into one
Employees working from home can access and store documents anytime removing the need to travel to the office
Retention rules are automatically applied to legal documents such as property deeds or wills, meaning documents are kept only for as long as needed

DocTech Solutions

What are The Results?

DocTech have worked with The Woodland Trust Charity since 2014.

The project was initially driven by the need to use less paper and process gift aid forms more efficiently.

Their separate systems now work together and by simplifying access to information, customer service has been improved.

100%

Improvement for remote workers providing them with web-based access to the documents they need from any location, without compromise.

Gift Aid

Forms are digitally processed. This secure, efficient capture and storage solutions increases the charity’s income and ensures the legal documents are correctly retained.

One of our original purposes in implementing DocuWare was to make our move to a new building easier and move toward a paperless office. That was accomplished, but the real benefit we’ve seen is DocuWare’s flexibility which allows each of our departments to use the software in very different ways expanding charitable income and helping us reach our goals.

The Woodland Trust - IT Systems Analyst