Testimonials
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCES: WHEN COMMUNES POOL THEIR TOOLS
LE COTENTIN URBAN CONGLOMERATION
As part of the NOTRe law, the town of Cherbourg-Octeville took the step of merging and pooling resources back in 2015-2016, initiating its merger with the Cherbourg urban community comprising five communes. A new commune was born: Cherbourg en Cotentin.
But Cherbourg en Cotentin didn’t stop there, and in 2016-2017 embarked on a second merger. This time with the new commune of La Hague and ten neighboring communes. They all now form the Urban conglomeration Le Cotentin.
182,000
inhabitants, the 14th most populous urban area in France
132
communes grouped into a single entity
300,000
accounting entries per year with Astre GF software
THE SOLUTION
USE A COMMON SOFTWARE PACKAGE TO MANAGE ALL BUDGETS
Keeping accounts in line, continuing to draw up staff payrolls without a hitch, paying suppliers on time via zero-defect invoicing… To minimize the impact on the day-to-day management of budgets and HR for all the communes involved in the merger, it was essential to harmonize financial and HR management software. There were several pitfalls: some communes were already equipped with ASTRE GF and ASTRE RH, while others were not. And successive mergers had to be carried out with very tight deadlines.
It soon seemed obvious to extend the use of ASTRE to each stage of the merger, until it became a common tool and everyone was working with the same solution. Inetum Software’s teams mobilized alongside the players from the local authorities concerned to meet the challenge of pooling tools. And in record time.
The databases were successively merged after a convergence plan had been drawn up. The project was rounded off by a major training and solution adoption program. The aim was to make it easier for staff to get to grips with the system.
From now on, all financial and HR management will be handled by the same software. The result: fluid interactions, harmonized practices, operational efficiency and economies of scale.
The Urban conglomeration Le Cotentin relies on the reliability and robustness of ASTRE GF to manage 38 budgets, 300,000 accounting entries per year and a budget of 720 million euros.
When local finances know how to reinvent and modernize themselves, they have everything to gain!
“We were using ASTRE software at Cherbourg-Octeville and at the urban area, so we turned to Inetum Software to manage our two mergers.”
Franck Duval
Shared Deputy General Manager, Finance Division