OpenSky | National Transport Authority

4 hours

Saved on queries through automated integration with finance system

2.5 days

Days saved on producing Monthly Spend Reports

75%

Reduction in time to produce Ad Hoc Reports

24/7

Accessible automated multi-annual reporting

€700 million

in public grants managed through PRS

10+

Government organisations collaborating

The National Transport Authority (NTA) is a statutory non-commercial body operating under the aegis of the Department of Transport. Established in 2009, the NTA is responsible for developing and implementing strategies to provide high quality, accessible, sustainable transport across Ireland. The National Transport Authority required a digital platform that could integrate into their existing finance portal to manage the allocation and dissemination of NTA capital grant funding to external agencies.

The Situation

Each year, the NTA receives a capital funding allocation from the Department of Transport. The NTA’s Transport Planning & Investment Department (TPI) oversees the allocation of capital funds to external agencies and bodies for the delivery of public transport projects. The NTA’s Capital Programme Office (“CPO”) (as part of the NTA’s Transport Planning & Investment Department) administers the allocation of capital funds to external agencies and bodies.

The NTA engaged OpenSky to develop and deliver an online shared Project Reporting System (PRS) that would integrate into their pre-existing finances portal and enable automation to manage the processes for approving and allocating payments for project applications.

A Highly Automated Financial Grants Allocation System

In August 2021 OpenSky delivered the Project Reporting System (PRS) to the National Transport Authority. PRS is a completely rebuilt system for the NTA that is both intuitive and modern, allowing finance officers greater control over project payment processes. This cloud-based platform features automated reporting, accessibility, and extensive functionality that allows the NTA to more effectively manage and report on public grant payments for projects. The system allows a simple and fast way to manage, approve, and report on all parts of project expenditure in NTA projects, freeing up Finance officers to work on more important tasks.

PRS is now a standardised platform that oversees public grants and payment processes for many private and public organisations engaged in projects with the NTA. The intuitive portal enables external project partners of the NTA to register on the system quickly & easily. At its core, PRS features best-practice modern architecture, resulting in a future-proofed platform that will easily support additional functionality, integrations and features to be developed over the course of time.

PRS has brought freedom, accuracy, and speed to the NTA’s finance teams, giving them the ability to produce reports, process information, and allocate grants faster than ever.

The Automated Integration with Agresso has decreased the integration from a previous 6 hours to a vastly improved 2 hours.
The Monthly Spend Report took roughly 4-5 days to create - this time has been cut in half.
PRS has allowed a 75% Reduction in the time to produce Ad Hoc Reports.
PRS is used to manage an annual budget of over €700 million.
Today, the completely rebuilt PRS is used in a wide variety of transport and accessibility infrastructure projects (including the Dublin Area Rapid Transit, Luas, and Metro projects) and by many government organisations, including The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER), Department of Transport (DOT), Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann and others.