Breaking the Legacy Lock: ASC’s Finance Revolution
Challenges
- Legacy finance platform was completely misaligned with the cloud-based tools used across the rest of the organisation
- Slowed down day-to-day operations and prevented ASC from realising its collaborative decision-making culture
Outcomes
- A fully integrated, future-ready finance system
- A culture of empowered decision-making underpinned by real-time data
- Greater operational agility to support global growth
Key services
- Project guidance and support
About ASC
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is a global non-profit committed to improving the sustainability of seafood farming. With consumers in over 115 countries, payroll spanning 19 countries, and a turnover of approximately £14 million, ASC ensures traceability and transparency throughout the supply chain. The organisation has grown rapidly in size and complexity while staying focused on its mission to create a more sustainable seafood industry.
The challenge
When Chief Financial Officer Helga Edwards joined ASC, the finance function was struggling under the weight of an outdated and disconnected system.
The legacy finance platform was completely misaligned with the cloud-based tools used across the rest of the organisation. This created a siloed finance function, both in terms of technology and working culture.“The finance system was no longer fit for purpose,” Edwards explains. “We were working on a completely different platform from the rest of the organisation, and that made the team feel quite isolated.”
Key limitations included:
- Lack of a purchase ordering system
- Poor reporting and analytical capabilities
- Heavy reliance on manual data entry and reconciliation
- Inability to consolidate across multiple entities
- Security and compliance risks due to obsolete infrastructure
"These issues not only slowed down day-to-day operations but also prevented ASC from realising its collaborative decision-making culture. Managers across the organisation simply couldn’t access the data they needed to make informed, timely decisions."
Helga Edwards
Chief Financial Officer, ASC
The solution
ASC recognised that replacing its finance system required more than a technology upgrade—it demanded a strategic rethink. Hart Square was engaged as an independent advisor to guide the project from vision to partner selection.
Working closely with stakeholders across the global organisation, Hart Square helped ASC:
- Define future-focused requirements, aligned to both current pain points and growth plans
- Clarify the level of system sophistication required to support international operations
- Engage and align internal teams around the case for change
- Run a robust partner selection process with clear evaluation criteria
After a comprehensive options analysis, ASC selected Xledger as its cloud-based finance solution. Xledger’s combination of scalability, multi-entity functionality, and automation tools made it an ideal fit for a global non-profit with complex needs.
“It wasn’t just about choosing software,” Edwards adds. “We needed a partner we could grow with, not just someone to fix a short-term problem.”
Implementation
ASC adopted a pragmatic, phased implementation strategy to reduce risk and manage change effectively.
The first stage focused on deploying core functionality to stabilise operations and simplify processes. This included:
- Implementing a global purchase order workflow
- Streamlining expense management through a mobile, multi-currency app
- Automating reconciliations and reporting workflows
- Integrating basic ledger data with opening balances only—avoiding unnecessary historic data migration
This approach allowed the team to focus on delivering immediate impact while laying the groundwork for future development. Change management was embedded throughout, with structured communications and support processes in place to guide staff through the transition.
Results and impact
Efficiency gains
- Freed up over one full-time equivalent in manual finance processing
- Enabled faster, more accurate reporting across all legal entities
- Reduced operational overhead through automation
Cultural transformation
The new finance system has repositioned finance at the heart of ASC’s operations. Finance is no longer an isolated function—it’s now integrated into cross-team collaboration and decision-making across 19 countries.
“I wanted to bring the finance team more into the centre—because that’s where they should be,” Edwards says.
Cost-neutral transformation
Despite the significant gains in capability and performance, the organisation has kept operating costs flat—achieving a major transformation with no increase in ongoing spend.
Global readiness
With Xledger now supporting transactions across multiple countries, ASC has a truly scalable finance infrastructure built to support future growth.
Conclusion
By unlocking itself from outdated, siloed systems, ASC has revolutionised the way finance operates—both technically and culturally. What started as a system replacement became a catalyst for broader organisational change.
With Hart Square’s strategic guidance and Xledger’s modern, cloud-based platform, ASC has achieved:
- A fully integrated, future-ready finance system
- A culture of empowered decision-making underpinned by real-time data
- Greater operational agility to support global growth
Together, Hart Square and Xledger have delivered more than just a solution—they’ve helped ASC embed a smarter, more connected way of working across the organisation.