Finance System

Description

Provision of the University's core finance management system, including software licences, software assurance, maintenance, support, upgrades and associated professional services. The system supports key financial processes including general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, procurement integration and associated management information requirements.

Key facts

Procedure

Direct award

Lots

1

Contact

procurement@canterbury.ac.uk

Contract period

1 May 2027 → 30 Apr 2032

Value incl. VAT

£1.8m

Category

goods

Awarded suppliers

• Unit4 Business Software Ltd · GB-COH-01737985 · UKI42, GB

Ground given for limiting competition

The buyer’s own stated reason for awarding without open competition, as published. Their assertion, not a finding.

The University intends to award a contract directly to Unit4 Business Software Limited for the continued provision of its Unit4 ERP (Agresso) finance management system. The University's finance operations, business processes, reporting structures, integrations and associated data are built around the existing Unit4 platform. The system is integrated with a range of internal and third-party applications and supports critical financial management activities across the institution. The University has concluded that changing supplier at this time would result in significant technical and operational challenges. Replacing the current platform would require extensive system redesign, migration of historical financial data, redevelopment of integrations, business process reconfiguration, testing and user retraining. The resulting incompatibility with existing systems and processes would create substantial implementation risk, cost and disruption to the delivery of important services. The University therefore considers that the circumstances satisfy the direct award justification relating to the absence of competition for technical reasons and the need to maintain compatibility with existing systems, as described in Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023. Paragraph 27 of the statutory guidance recognises that incompatibility between existing systems and replacement solutions may justify direct award where it would lead to significant cost, delay or complex redesign activities.