Capital Business Solutions Blog

Easter Seals Squeezes Out Maximum Efficiency with Help from Capital Business Solutions

January 27th, 2012

Easter Seals of South Carolina runs a lean operation, dedicating as much of their budget as possible to the communities they serve. For example, the organization dispensed with their offices about five years ago, according to Ellen Staubach, Director of Finance and Human Resources. “We have about 125 people working for us and they all work from their homes” says Ellen. “Because the services Easter Seals provides are in our clients’ homes, it didn’t make sense to have buildings that required expensive overhead. As a non-profit, we prefer to dedicate that money to services.”

And when it comes to their IT needs, she says CBS has been a critically important partner in Easter Seals’ efforts to be as efficient as possible. Easter Seals of South Carolina has relied on Capital Business’ software – both Drillpoint Reports and Paypoint – as well as their professional services and training. “We’re all about saving money,” Ellen explains, “I can promise you that.”

The money Easter Seals of South Carolina saves in overhead goes to help serve roughly 2000 children and their families every year. “Our mission is to provide services to children with disabilities and special needs so they have equal opportunity to live, learn, work and play in their communities. The most important time, as our new slogan says, is the first five years. That’s when a child needs the most help and the most assistance to get past any special delays they may have,” she says. “And there are more people on waiting lists. There’s a lot of services we’d love to be able to furnish and more clients we’d love to serve – because it more than pays for itself in the long run. I’m excited about what we do and I love it.”

The first major savings Capital Business enabled Ellen to make was when she was evaluating Easter Seals financial solution – Sage Fund Accounting. “When I looked at our financial software, I found we’d were pretty much the record holder for organizations that had been continuously using Sage MIP Fund Accounting – it had been something like 20 plus years. I knew Sage Fund Accounting, and knew it was good software, but to be honest – we had 20 years worth old data and it was a mess.”

Realizing that her solution was hopelessly mired in a mess of legacy data, she called Capital Business. “I said I have this software and I like it, but it’s going to drive me crazy. I can’t get it to work properly anymore. And instead of trying to sell us a new software package, they said ‘Why buy new software when you already own this? We’ll install a new instance of the current version, move over new data and vendors you’re currently using – and you can have the old version and the new version. The old data is right there, and the new data is right there. And my response was, ‘You’re a genius.’ And in the end, I didn’t have to buy any new software – which saved us a lot of money. They came down and installed it, and it was perfect.” Ellen estimates that in this case Capital Business Solutions helped save Easter Seals tens of thousands of dollars.

Drillpoint

Ellen – who is not only the Finance and HR director, but also wears many hats such as CPR trainer and IT support person – is always looking for ways to fit more productivity into her busy day. “I was spending probably four days a month just on financial reports,” she says. “The financial statements in Sage are great, but they weren’t exactly in the format that we wanted. So I called CBS and explained the issue I was having in Sage, and he said, you know what we have Drillpoint and it will do it for you – and when he told me the price and I said, ‘I’m all over that.’ And then he told me the benefits of it, such as I only have to tell it the date and click the button, and boom there’s my financial statement, and I got really excited. It is extremely easy to use.”

And with Drillpoint, she has reduced the time she spends on financial reports from about four days a month to less than a single day. “I’m running six or seven different financial statements, one for each individual program director, and they love it.”

And generating the kinds of reports she needs is only one of the ways Drillpoint has saved time – she now spends less time checking and correcting the reports. For instance, if she were to see that general management had an expense item that didn’t make any sense, she can work out how the error happened and get it fixed – quickly. “So when I see a problem, I click the on the dollar amount and it instantly shows me where I might have made an incorrect journal entry. I don’t have to spend a lot of time doing a search to find the error. I can find it and fix it right away. When you’ve been doing it as long as I have, you can look at a number and see it looks wrong – so wow, being able to just click on it and see where it came from is incredible. It used to take me so long – going back and forth between the GL and then redoing the financials, then looking, then going back. It was so time consuming – and my time is extremely valuable. I cram a lot into a day and I want to spend as little time on data entry for the financial statement as I have to. I know it’s important, and I know it has to be accurate, and I feel very comfortable with Drillpoint.”

And on top of that, she can now present the reports in more useful and attractive formats. “With Drillpoint, I can make it look pretty, I don’t have to go just with the standard boring financial statement. I can use any different format Excel allows.”

Paypoint

In the last five years, Ellen has seen the Easter Seals of South Carolina team grow from about 60 employees to 125. Payroll went from being a minor headache to a major challenge. “We’d gotten rid of our building, so each and every employee is working remotely. Which means each of them needs to get their paystub delivered to them on pay date but at 125 different locations. And when you add up all the different costs of snail mail – the time, the postage, the paper, the toner, the envelopes – and doing all of that twice a month, it gets expensive. Plus, if you’re using snail mail, you never know how long it may take for an employee to get their check stub.”

Ellen asked Capital Business Solutions if there weren’t someway to automate all that. “So I said, you know what? I know people who get their paystub instantly online. Isn’t there someway we can do this? They told me they had developed this solution, Paypoint – and it’s terrific. It’s saved me significant time and money. And our employees love it. I don’t understand smaller organizations who chose to outsource payroll. My payroll takes an hour at most. Now that I email stubs to everyone and everything is direct deposit, how easy could it be?”

Working with Capital Business Solutions

Ellen says that she has no doubt in her mind that working with Capital Business Solutions has saved her “a LOT of money, that they’ve saved me a LOT of time.” Not only did they save her replacing her Sage Fund Accounting software, and save her time and money with Drillpoint and Paypoint – they also gave her targeted training that helped her get the most out of her software in the briefest amount of time. “I knew Sage Fund Accounting pretty well, but they showed me some things I didn’t know that just saved me so much more time. Things I might have learned in a class – but I didn’t want to invest in going out-of-town for a four day class where they would cover things I didn’t need.”

Ellen only needed about one-day of training, which Capital Business Solutions provided on-site. “I knew a lot, so they brought just exactly the training I needed, just about the things I didn’t know. It was so efficient, I didn’t have to sit through a bunch of training on accounts receivable – I don’t have accounts receivable.”

According to Ellen, Capital Business Solutions stands out because they “don’t just speak IT. They speak accounting. They speak English. It’s fabulous. Their service is not to be believed. I really, really appreciate those guys. And they’re so customer service oriented, I’d recommend them to anyone. I just love anyone who can make my life easier and take unnecessary work off my plate to free up more of my time.”

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Posted in Drillpoint, Fund Accounting, Reporting | No Comments »

Chimp Haven Enjoys Greater Proficiency on Raiser’s Edge with Help from Capital Business Solutions

November 15th, 2011

Chimp Haven (www.chimphaven.org) is where chimpanzees who have spent their lives aiding humans can go to retire. When chimpanzees are no longer needed for medical research or have outstayed their welcome as pets or entertainers, they need some place to live out the balance of their lives.

Though it didn’t open its doors until 2005, effort to launch Chimp Haven began in 1995 with a group of concerned primatologists. “We were all people who had been working with captive chimpanzees in some regard. It was founded primarily for housing of research chimpanzees,” recalls Linda Brent a Chimp Haven founder who is now President and Director. Part of the reason it took a little while to launch the project, says Linda, was the primatologists were initially inexperienced with nonprofits and development.

Chimp Haven selected Blackbaud’s Raisers Edge as their fundraising software tool several years ago. Linda’s team found the power and flexibility of the tool impressive – but also found that it tended to be difficult and complex. Chimp Haven began looking for help, Linda says, when she realized she wasn’t able to use the full power of Raiser’s Edge and that problems with their data and database were severely hindering the success of development efforts.

“Raiser’s Edge is a powerful and flexible tool,” says Linda. “But that can be a two-sided sword, because that flexibility means that if each generation of system users does things a little differently, you can end up with a real mess. That’s what happened to us.”

Linda called on Capital Business Solutions (CBS) to help her clean up their database and better organize the data structure. “We were desperate. When we first began working with CBS a couple of years ago, they began by helping us to evaluate how we worked and how we had Raiser’s Edge set up.”

Today, Chimp Haven is a seasoned, highly efficient, and lean operation. Total staff – including vets, primatologists, maintenance crews and everyone – number fewer than 35. “And we have three admin people and three management and development people – that’s including myself,” says Linda. “I do some of the fundraising work, there is an assistant director, and a major gifts person just started this year.”

The Origin of Chimp Haven

How did Chimp Haven come to be in the first place? At the dawn of the AIDS crisis in America, scientists believed that “chimpanzees were going to be really useful in HIV research and that they were going to be instrumental in creating a vaccine for HIV,” says Linda. “And so the government very aggressively started breeding chimps in the 1980s.”

Unfortunately, chimpanzees had proved to be much less helpful in the search for answers to AIDS than scientists had at first hoped. “So by the mid 90s,” explains Linda, “they not only had bred a lot of chimpanzees but they’d also found they weren’t going to be the model they had expected. You had both things happening at the same time creating what was called the surplus chimpanzee crisis. So those of us that started Chimp Haven thought that it was important that a nice retirement place was available for the chimpanzees.”

Between launching the initial effort and opening Chimp Haven, Linda and her team had to meet a number of milestones. Among the most important was finding and securing a suitable location and winning a contract to help the government cope with their surplus chimpanzees. “There was a law passed in 2000 that required the federal government to set up a system to retire chimpanzees when they no longer needed them for research. They contract that work out, and we’re the contractors who do that work.”

The land that Chimp Haven was built on sits in the middle of a 1200-acre nature preserve in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. “The land was donated by citizens in Caddo Parish. When we were granted the land, there was nothing here, no roads or anything,” says Linda. “We began construction in 2003, and we had to build out the infrastructure and buildings and everything from scratch. The first chimpanzees arrived in 2005, and we are now caring for about 130 chimpanzees.”

In order to provide appropriate care and a safe place for the chimpanzees, Linda needs to direct an ongoing, efficient, and effective fundraising effort. “Although we have that government contract – it only covers 75% of the cost of each chimpanzee we accept from the government. It’s a cost sharing contract, so we have to come up with 25% of the funds for each of the government chimpanzees – and 100% for chimpanzees we rescue from other sources – and we have to provide all funding for our education and outreach programs,” says Linda. “So it requires a fair amount of fund-raising to keep it all afloat.”

Development, Raiser’s Edge, and CBS at Chimp Haven

Her small administrative and development crew relies on Raiser’s Edge to track the annual fund, major gifts, acquisition mailings, and corporation and foundation programs. While operations are humming now, things were not always so rosy. “I began getting more involved with the development end of things about three years ago,” says Linda. “It became evident right away that the way our Raiser’s Edge was being used – and the way data were being entered – was unwieldy. There was almost no way we could get reports to even judge how things were doing. One of the main ways we evaluate our program is to look at, who’s giving money, and who that person or organization is. One of the main reports I needed but could never do easily was a simple report on our main constituents. Which was ridiculous, because it’s basic, fundamental information. We have specific goals for individual gifts, foundation gifts, etc and there was no way I could see how we were doing without having to print a bunch of stuff off and then adding things all up by hand.”

When CBS arrived on site, one of the first things they did was audit the system and find where the issues lay. Like many other organizations, there were problems both in the initial configuration of Raiser’s Edge and the way things had evolved over time. “We had a person in charge of working with Raiser’s Edge day-to-day, and then that person quit and a new person came in. When this person left, we had another person come in, and apparently everyone had done things a little differently. All of which added up to a lot of problems with the consistency of the data. It was overwhelming to us, but it was something that CBS clearly had seen many times before.”

“And then, because it’s very customizable,” says Linda, “there’s never just one right answer. CBS helped us think through all the ways we could perform operations, and then come up with systems and procedures that were correct for us. That made an amazing difference here.”

One of the major tangles was in the way constituent codes had been handled. “They helped us to get our constituent codes fixed. Now we have the main codes – Individual, Corporation, Foundation, Major Gifts – and everybody is one of those main codes. Then we have secondary codes that can be added – like “family foundation” so we can differentiate between family foundations and larger foundations. Or certain kinds of businesses from other types of corporations. It’s all so simple now, I just click a button and there’s the report I need.”

“After spending a few days with us and doing this massive database clean-up,” says Linda, “they came back and did training. The training was critical because we wanted to be sure that we didn’t drift back into having data that wasn’t correct or not standardized.” The training helped Linda’s staff develop a set of written standard operating procedures. “They trained all of us about how to do reports and queries – things that take forever if you don’t know how to do it right. We’re all much better at that.”

All of the on-site training CBS offered was given simultaneously to Linda and her whole staff. “And it was all specific to us. They might be training us on something and we’d say, ‘Can you pull up such-and-such a record’ from our files – and they would pull it right up. An actual record from our own database is the perfect training example because it’s real for everybody.”

Creating a set of standard operating procedures that her whole team can share is another major step forward Chimp Haven has been able to take since the data was cleaned up. “In the past, only one person knew how to work on the system. Now we have five people who know enough to help if someone is out or help answer questions. It’s tremendously important to have that cross-training because you don’t know when someone may be out or take leave. Now, no matter what, we can all pitch in.”

How was it working with CBS?

How was it working with CBS? “It was wonderful all the way around. They are not only professional, but more importantly for us, they are very service-oriented and very personable. The best thing I can say about using CBS is that whatever service you buy from them – it is going to be directly what you need. It’s not just a generic manual or “one size fits all” classroom training on the software. That level of generality is hard to translate to your specific situation because Raiser’s Edge is so powerful and flexible and customizable. So you really need someone like CBS who is so familiar with your business and what you’re doing and how you’re doing it – then they can very quickly and nimbly assist you. It’s a much more efficient use of time and our funds.”

Linda thinks the efficiency might not be apparent to many non-profits at first. “A lot of non profits might shy away because of the initial expense,” Linda explains. “But what people need to keep in mind is – it is much less expensive to have one expert come and train your whole staff than for you to send person after person somewhere else and just hope they get similar training, learn the same things and be able to apply it to the organization’s processes. We’re a very small staff, and have been working hard to cross train more people, so having CBS come on onsite allowed us to train five people all at the same time. We all saw the same data and screens, listened to the same examples and we can compare notes and find the same solution. It is just tremendously helpful.”

“Whenever I get a chance to recommend CBS, I jump at the chance,” says Linda. “I’m normally a very critically-minded person, but I can’t find enough good things to say about CBS. If anyone ever has a question about their value or what they do, I’d be happy to talk to them in person because it’s been such a help and so very valuable to us.”

“If your nonprofit needs help with Raiser’s Edge, I would recommend CBS, definitely,” she continues. ”We’ve used consulting services for other things in the past, and I just don’t feel the same level of enthusiasm. Perhaps because the team there is so dedicated to non-profits – they’re very bright and knowledgeable on systems – and they get up every morning in order to help nonprofits.”

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Posted in Donor database, Fundraising, Raiser's Edge, Reporting | No Comments »

African Wildlife Foundation Working Efficiently with Serenic Navigator and Help from Capital Business Solutions

October 3rd, 2011

African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is the leading international conservation organization focused solely on Africa. By protecting Africa’s wildlife and wild landscapes, the AWF is working to ensure prosperity of Africa and its people. And they’ve been successfully doing this work for more than 50 years.

In order to help save endangered animals – such as mountain gorillas, elephants, leopards, bonobos and more – and preserve wild lands across the continent, the AWF has to tackle all kinds of tough business challenges. “Right now, we are administering about 70 or so active grants,” explains Jeff Chrisfield, CFO at AWF. “Our grants come in all sizes. We accept and track restricted grants starting at about $25 thousand dollars, but of course they go up into the multimillions. And that’s 70 grants spread across different programs that span nine geographical regions. Our challenge is weaving together the tapestry of funding.”

Just a few years ago, the AWF finance team was getting by with a system cobbled together from a Canadian edition of QuickBooks (“…because the Canadian version could do multiple currencies,” says Jeff), an antiquated enterprise accounting system, and a separate reporting package — because the enterprise software couldn’t handle their reporting requirements.

All of this failed to solve some important challenges, and required time-intensive manual work and data entry at several different points in the process.

Naturally, they wanted to find a more sophisticated solution. “We reviewed a few possible solutions, but there weren’t any that handled things we needed done like Serenic Navigator,” says Jeff.

Initially, says Jeff, he was very interested by Serenic’s ability to replicate data from one server to multiple geographically disparate servers. “Of course it was fine to work over the Internet here in DC, but historically, we had people in our Nairobi office dialing in; access wasn’t always steady, and speeds could be very slow. The replication functionality we got with Serenic helped us out there.” Capital Business Solutions (CBS) presented Serenic to AWF. “I was impressed with CBS right away. It was like they were really trying to find a solution that fit the way we worked, not trying to fit us to a solution,” says Jeff.

But just a couple of years down the line, the reality has changed. “There are new fiber optic lines that have improved speed and Internet reliability in Nairobi.” And AWF, with help from CBS, has adapted to take advantage of the improved African Internet capabilities. “We’ve consolidated and merged all of our operations to one server in Nairobi. And having that one database in Nairobi has allowed us to centralize our treasury and procurement operations there, and split our general ledger team between Nairobi and Washington DC.”

“Today, we have about 25 or our DC personnel on the system,” says Jeff. “We’re adding about 50 in Kenya. By the time we’re all done, we’re going to have about 150 to 200 people in the system on a daily basis. But because it automates so much manual work, it allows us to keep a very small, focused accounting infrastructure. Our central finance team is still about eight people. We haven’t had to staff up.”

So how have the benefits stacked up for AWF? “Where are we now compared to where we were when we implemented Serenic? To begin with,” Jeff says, “we’ve collapsed 11 company profiles into just one, eliminating the need for that entire monthly consolidation step. Everyone is actually in the same system, budget rules apply to everyone across the board. Plus, it’s sped us up significantly; we have real time access to data.”

Jeff says that one of the biggest benefits for AWF was allowing them to restructure the way the organization works. AWF has two main offices – one in Washington and one in Nairobi, but operates field offices across Africa based on specific grants and projects. “These offices have always been – by necessity – very independent,” says Jeff. “They had a finance officer, and maybe an assistant, a program director, and program people. But that wasn’t ideal. We were lucky we never ran into a problem, but it made for weak internal controls — these people are in isolated offices, working altogether day in and day out, with program people basically acting as signatories and as control checks from an accounting standpoint. Plus, they’re busy implementing their programs, and they’re not really trained in finance. So you can end up with a single person doing more in the system than they should do. Again, we’ve been lucky, but it exposes you to the risk.”
Jeff says that Serenic has allowed AWF to eliminate this exposure.”It meets that need for a control process without having to hire lots of overhead finance people for each field office,” he says. “With Serenic, you get the segregation of duties by distributing the responsibilities. It centralizes procurement away from the field office. Most large cash disbursement moves out of their purview and leaves them able to concentrate on managing their budgets and with the day-to-day logistics of getting people from point A to Point-B across the African landscape – which can be challenging. That’s very meaningful to us.”

Serenic Web Portals

Soon, according to Jeff, everyone in his organization is going to be using the Web Portal they’re currently rolling out. The Web portal will function as both a requisition and expense-entry and -approval system.

As a Requisition Portal

With the advent of AWF’s new Serenic Web interface, when staff wants to make a purchase, they will go to the Serenic Requisition Portal and enter all the relevant information. “And as they enter it,” says Jeff, “it puts that data directly into Serenic so it never has to be entered again.”

Once the requisition is entered, the approval flow is all handled by Serenic. Emails are automatically generated and sent to the people responsible for approving the requisition. “Then, when those people log in,” explains Jeff. “They make the approval electronically. The approval automatically goes to a procurement team in Nairobi who decides how to handle the purchase, and then they issue the purchase order. No one has ever had to re-key any data, no paper forms that have to get shipped around. The original requisition has most or all of the pertinent information on the transaction so when it gets to procurement, it’s pretty much done. They may have to supply a couple of terms, but they don’t have to re-key and lines or budget codes. When it goes to Treasury, they just convert the PO to an invoice – maybe they have to correct or add tax or shipping, but effectively all the data is already right there, in the system.” Instead of spending their time on data entry and chasing down paper forms, they can concentrate on budget management and other more important duties.”

As an Expense Portal

“As the expense portal, it has a lot of the same automation advantages,” says Jeff. “For instance, we do a lot of advances for staff travel expenses – in Africa it’s very common to give cash advances for travel. So entails an expense report after the fact.

“All of that used to be done via an Excel form,” he continues, “that would get printed out, staff would fill out the form, attach their receipts, and send it to accounting, where the whole thing had to be re-keyed. Now, through the web portal, it’s already done the first time, the data is living in the system. It’s just a huge time savings.”

AWF is also using the Serenic and the expense portal to automate credit card reconciliation. Finance downloads records monthly from their credit card provider, then uploads the data to Serenic. “Then every month, all card holders have an expense report generated for them by Serenic -with all the transaction dates and amounts and all that information already there,” says Jeff. “And we’ve even created a process to furnish the account code it should go to. So all they have to do is collect their receipts and select the budget line.”

An assistant scans in the receipts, and from there, the rest of the approval process is automated – there’s no physical paper being tracked or moved. “And since we’re not all in one place – but all over Africa and Washington,” Jeff observes, “moving paper around is not only a pain, it can be really expensive.”

Grant Restriction Dimension
The majority of AWF’s funding comes in grants and donations from the US and European governments, foundations, and individual donors. “The grants are generally based on proposals we’ve sent out,” says Jeff. “The proposals lay out what we plan to do, and how we plan to use any funds.” And the funds normally come with restrictions that stipulate they’re spent according to certain aspects of that proposal.

“That’s how we’ve used the dimension code in Serenic’s Award Vision. Each restriction is basically a promise to a donor about how we’ll use their funds – and we’re accountable on that. So we code each restriction in as an award restriction,” says Jeff. “And we budget based on that. We can really track grant-by-grant each commitment we’ve made for every dollar we budget.”

“And another thing that’s good in Serenic,” he says, “is the way CBS structured the award restriction dimension with us. Now when staff enters against that award dimension, we’ve already layered in geography codes – which tell me where the activity is taking place – and an activity code, which categorizes what kind of thing that is. They just enter the award restriction, and it automatically fills in that information that I need for my financial statements without burdening staff with having to deal with a bunch of different codes.”

Multiple Currencies
AWF works in 11 African countries, plus the United States and the UK, pays vendors in Europe, and has employees based in Europe. They are dealing with more than a dozen currencies a day, which makes it critical that they have the ability to conduct transactions in those currencies. “The US pays grants in US dollars,” says Jeff, “but those grants are going to be implemented across Africa in various currencies. And then, we have to convert it all back to report it in US dollars. On top of that, grants come in different currencies. While grants may come in Euros, we report that internally in US dollars and then issue donor reports back in Euros. We even have a donor who makes grants in Kenyan shillings. Since we’re US-based, we must have the US Dollar as our base, but it’s absolutely critical to have other currencies – and award currencies. I’ve never seen a product that can handle that outside of Serenic.”

Capital Business Solutions
“Capital Business Solutions? We’ve just had such a great experience with them,” says Jeff. “They’ve helped us find so many ways we can use the greatest strengths in Serenic. Their training is so good, we’ve flown them to Nairobi to help train in our staff there. They engaged right from the start to find ways to use the system the way AWF works – and that was key.”

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Posted in Fund Accounting, Grant funded, Nonprofit, Serenic Navigator | No Comments »

National Association of Hospital Hospitality Houses

October 1st, 2011

If you are attending the NAHHH 2011 Conference and 25^th Anniversary in Chapel Hill, October 10 – 13, we hope that you will stop by our booth and say hello.

Capital Business Solutions will be represented by Alyson Watts and Josh Burtis.

The mission of NAHHH is to support homes that help and heal to be more effective in their service to patients and families.

The conference includes dozens of sessions sharing best practices and excellent speakers and panels. We’ll be on hand to talk about the technology and software solutions that help NAHHH members raise and manage the funds critical to assisting patients and families.

We hope to see you there:

NAHHH 2011 Conference and 15^th Anniversary

October 10 -13, 2011

Sheraton Chapel Hill Hotel

One Europa Drive

Chapel Hill, NC 27517

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Posted in Grant funded, Nonprofit | No Comments »

Top 6 Ways DrillPoint Reports Work for Nonprofits

June 5th, 2011

We developed DrillPoint to make reporting easier and reporting output more flexible for Nonprofit organizations.

The more numerous your reports, the more DrillPoint can work for you. Are you working until the last minute to get your reports ready for presentations to management and the board? DrillPoint can really help make your presentations sparkle.

DrillPoint is an integrated Excel Report Writer for Sage Fund Accounting.

Here are the Top 6 Ways Drillpoint Reports Works for Nonprofits:

1. Saves Time – Drillpoint Reports are saved and refreshed for each reporting instance allowing for the review of financial data versus the preparation of financial data. The software requires very basic knowledge of the account structure and minimal knowledge (if any) of Sage Fund Accounting.

2. Empowers Users – Drillpoint Reports offers specific Viewer Licenses which expands the overall use of the software organization-wide which in turn reduces the burden of generating and delivering report for the accounting staff.

3. Variety – Multi-year, multi-period, charts, and graphs, Drillpoint can handle it as well as provide key reports like Statement of Activities, Statement of Financial Position, Statement of Functional Expenses, Grant Reports, trends, projections, and unposted actual balances.

4. Consumption – DrillPoint provides a tool to create presentation-ready reports for Board Meetings and empowers managers of programs, grants and projects to refresh their own reports and and drill-down into balances to review transactional details.

5. Formats – You’ll enjoy the flexible row definitions which allow segments of the account structure to be grouped in a variety of formats, for example, creating Grant Reports that are based on the Grant Term.

6. Familiarity – DrillPoint Reports allow you to easily access you financial data within Microsoft Excel and create presentation-quality financial statements using a familiar, user-friendly spreadsheet application.

Interested in DrillPoint Reports and attending Sage Summit? We’ll be exhibiting at Booth 160 and we’d love to say hello face-to-face and show you more. Otherwise, give Andy Thorson a call at 1-888-366-7527 Ext. 23 and he can answer any additional questions.

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Posted in Drillpoint, Fund Accounting, Nonprofit, Reporting | No Comments »

Raiser’s Edge and Education Edge – Are Your Database Engines Working in Concert?

April 29th, 2011

The academic year is coming to a close for students. As summer approaches, you may want to consider taking steps to make your databases more effective, your staff more proficient, and enjoy greater integration between databases.

The independent schools that we work with rely heavily on their Raiser’s Edge and Education Edge databases. Usually there is a Raiser’s Edge database expert in the advancement office and an Education Edge expert in the registrar’s or admissions office. However, most schools don’t have the luxury of staff members with deep knowledge on both databases that is required for greater performance between systems.

And that’s where we come in. Our consultants are experts on both Raiser’s Edge and Education Edge and can work with you to fine tune the systems with the result of freeing your team to do more important development and administrative work than redundant data entry.

We offer services on Integration Preparedness (project management) and the actual Integration (project execution) that have been a benefit to many schools looking to extract maximum efficiency from both systems.

Imagine printing a parent directory confident that you have the most accurate contact information. Envision a streamlined and less time-consuming process for printing your annual report because you have all the information in one place. Enjoy a less cumbersome process for reporting to accreditation bodies such as CASE and VSE.

Imagine next Fall and starting the school year with your Advancement and Admissions staff empowered in the following ways:

Free more time to be strategic, creative and productive because systems are working together.

Time lost manually keying data between systems is reclaimed.
New records for incoming classes are entered in one database, one time.
Data is automatically synchronized.
Complex workarounds (e.g. internal email or memos) are also eliminated.

Enjoy greater accuracy of student, parent and alumni information.

Student and Parent records are updated automatically when, for example, the family addresses change.
Embarrassing missteps are prevented, such as soliciting parents of alumni as if their children are still active students.

Benefit from powerfully enhanced communications.

Ready access to the fullest, most up-to-date data (Class Year, Major/Minor, Family and Business Relationships) means more timely and meaningful communications, which builds stronger bonds with families and alumni.
All departments within the school – Admissions, Advancement, Registrar, Administration, Finance – are all working with the same set of data.

Easily perform more thorough analysis

Track fundraising by current student grade or alumni class year.
Quickly and easily prepare reports for funders or accrediting bodies.

There’s so much your school can gain by having your departments moving in the same direction, cleaning out the clutter of duplicate data entry, providing your team with the latest and best information, and spending more time on the larger goals of your school.

Here’s what we provide:

Experts who deeply understand both databases and can enhance the effectiveness of both systems while preserving data integrity
A thorough assessment of the Raiser’s Edge and Education Edge databases’ readiness for integration. This includes evaluating shared tables and shared parts of constituent records, and highlighting areas needing pre-integration clean-up.
Meetings with staff in all affected departments to evaluate business processes relating to integration, such as protocols for data entry and the use of addresses.
Project management that includes assistance forming an Integration Planning Team and facilitating the initial team meeting.
Discussion of critical decision points for setting integration criteria.
Key User Training to review areas of the software important to the integration process.
Project execution, if desired, to perform recommended data clean-up and to facilitate initial synchronization of the two databases.

We invite you to enlist our support and work with our experts who understand Raiser’s Edge, Education Edge, and most importantly how to optimize those powerful system resources for your staff and school.

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Posted in Donor database, Education Edge, Raiser's Edge | No Comments »

Triad Health Project Turns to Capital Business Solutions to Optimize Use of Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge

March 4th, 2011

Founded in 1986, Triad Health Project, an AIDS service organization, is observing its 25^th Anniversary. Executive Director Addison Ore notes the distinction between observing and celebrating an anniversary, “Obviously, our hope would be that 25 years later there would be no need for our services, and while there have been significant milestones, namely advancements in medications, there are still so many people that need our help.”

Located in Greensboro, NC, Triad Health Project serves hundreds of people every year through direct care programs, education and testing services.

“We’ve been under-using Raiser’s Edge for years,” explains Ore, “it’s a little like having a Mercedes in the garage and not knowing how to fully use it.”

Like many nonprofits, Triad Health Project put off training on the system due to cost and because of a tech-savvy staff member who could find her way around the system. Consequently, the need for widespread training wasn’t at the top of the priority list.

When approached by Capital Business Solutions who recommended 3-day onsite training for Triad Health Project, Ore decided to schedule training. “I had been planning to send one person to get trained. When I talked to CBS, I realized that at roughly the same cost of what travel, lodging, and offsite training would cost for one person, I could bring in CBS to train onsite and include more of our team. We just recently completed the training and now I’m asking myself why we didn’t do it sooner.”

In addition to being able to include more people in the training, Triad Health Project enjoyed the convenience of having the Raiser’s Edge training onsite. “It was a lot more compelling and interesting than tradition training,” explains Ore. “Capital Business Solutions tailored the training for us – it was put together with our mission, communications plan and team in mind. Our data and system was used for the training. It’s more interesting and easier to put into context when you see names and events that you recognize.”

Ore was pleased with how enthusiastically her team responded to the training, “It was fun to see them learning and showing off what they could do with the system. It was also good for me to have a deeper understanding of Raiser’s Edge because I now know what I can ask for in terms of reports and information from the database.”

Another efficiency that came with the on-site training was that a number of the reports created in the training sessions were put to work immediately. “We took some of the reports we had created during the training with us to the Team Development Retreat.”

“I would definitely recommend Capital Business Solutions. They understand the technology and they took the time to understand how our organization operates,” says Ore. “My advice to other Executive Directors who have been thinking about training but have put it off: find the money somewhere and make it a priority.”

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Posted in Donor database, Nonprofit, Raiser's Edge, Training | No Comments »

Why the MacGyver Approach to Financial Management Does Not Work for Large Nonprofits

February 18th, 2011

It all happens innocently enough – your entry level or midrange system is doing a fairly good job of handling your financial reporting – but the organization continues to grow. You are successful in being awarded an additional grant, then two more, then another. Suddenly your programs have expanded, your constituencies have grown, and before you know it – you’re a large nonprofit.

In the midst of the growth, as controller, you’ve become the MacGyver of financial reconciliation. As deftly as MacGyver making an escape using only his wits, a little duct tape, a lighter and baby powder – you are feverishly exporting data from one system, another set of data from another system, importing the data into spreadsheets and working very long hours to somehow bring together a meaningful view of the organization’s finances.

The problem is month-end closes have been taking longer and longer. You’re spending more time collecting and reconciling data than analyzing the financial state of the organization. In the back of your mind you have a pretty good hunch that your cash flow is not as good as it might be.

These are all symptoms of having outgrown your current accounting system – symptoms that we’ve witnessed and remedied many times. The solution we recommend for large nonprofits and large religious governance organizations (diocese, synods, etc.) is Serenic Navigator.

One benefit of implementing the system is eliminating the silos of information and housing the data in one comprehensive solution – no more duplication of data entry and endless reconciliation of data from multiple systems. But far beyond that, comes the power and convenience of having a built in workflow that follows business rules and organizational procedures.

For example, through allocations, you can automatically build in grant compliance rules. Rather than manually calculating monthly draw downs, system logic will allow you to automatically calculate direct and indirect costs. This permits you to charge funding sources right away versus a monthly manual routine of going grant by grant and making subsequent journal entries. Add to this the benefit of not having to cover indirect costs with locally generated funds, being up-to-date every time you run accounts payable and payroll, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that there are no unallowable expenses because the system is calculating correctly according to compliance rules.

In addition to usual reporting and grant tracking, religious governance organizations have the added complexity of tracking deposits, loans and interest. Serenic Navigator has the functionality to automate various loans, payment, and interest tracking – whether from a general offering collection, an endowment fund or charitable remainder trust to name just a few.

Using Serenic Navigator means that your reporting structure is consistent, uniform and adhering to organization policy. This will not only strengthen your ability to better manage your assets but ensure a solid methodology when being audited.

These are just some of features that automate the data collection and reporting and allow controllers to spend more time on the more strategic aspect of their job, namely reviewing and analyzing reports and protecting the assets of the organization.

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Posted in Fund Accounting, Nonprofit, Serenic Navigator | No Comments »

7 Goals for Leveraging Technology to Accomplish Your Nonprofit’s Mission

January 17th, 2011

“State budgets were a mess in FY2009, a debacle in FY2010, and look like impending catastrophes in FY2011,” states The Nonprofit Quarterly in a recent blog post.

It’s hard to gauge what, exactly, the impact on state funding and nonprofits will be, but in the common sense approach of “preparing for the worst while hoping for the best,” here are 11 ways to strengthen your organization through the use of technology.

Make a change before disaster strikes. While there is cost associated with licensing new software solutions, it is considerably less costly and traumatic to the organization than having antiquated, unsupported systems crash. Don’t risk the loss of precious data (donor and financial) that the organization has spent years collecting. Avoid disaster by proactively taking steps to replace your static, outdated system before it breaks.
Invest in technology that will increase your competitiveness for new grants and funding. Increased constituent need for support and services in the midst of limited funding and potential budget cuts means unprecedented competition for funding. The ability to access, organize, report and present required data quickly will be the margin of success in many cases – the race will not be won by organizations hamstrung by clunky, outdated systems where inordinate amounts of time must be spent extracting, compiling and manually reporting the data.
Seek agility and efficiencies in your ability to manage the re-proposal of grants. Having the right nonprofit accounting system means you have access to the history and reporting necessary to quickly and thoroughly respond to the requirements of the grant. You will free up considerable time in preparing for grants that are up for re-proposal since you can easily identify, capture and refine information that you need. The right system can help you better manage all the steps in pre-award process as it can be built into the system.
Insist on appropriate technology investments to make your organization accountable to mission and constituents. Eliminate the time and money wasted on duplicate data entry, correcting errors associated with manual processes, and the inability to make strategic and meaningful decisions due to stale or inaccurate information.
Look to tip the scales from reactive to proactive decision making. Building off of the last point, the entire organization and individual team members will benefit from moving from a reactive approach to decision making to a proactive approach. Arming the team with critical data to quickly correct, or better, prevent problems before they happen, will make for a more energized and effective organization.
Increase the proficiency and morale of the team by investing in adequate training. Far too often, nonprofit organizations put an unnecessary burden on staff by not adequately investing in the training that will make team members proficient on new systems. Instead of being a time-saver and escalating the efficiency and value of their work, lack of training serves to frustrate those who must use the system on a daily basis and postpone (at best) or cancel (at worst) the benefits of having a powerful system. Making an investment in adequate training mean your team is more proficient and confident in their use of the system. Not only does this result in better overall organizational performance, it goes a long way in boosting morale – which is crucial for employee retention and a great gift to give your team.
Look to strengthen relationship with donors through more timely, personalized, strategic and timely communication with donors. Fundraising is never easy. Now, faced with an uncertain economy, donors have hard choices to make. Never has maintaining a strong relationship with donors been more important. The degree to which your donor database can assist you in staying on top of gift recognition, event invitations, and other donor updates will maintain and strengthen the relationships you’ve been building over the years. Your donor database should also help you leverage social media and networking to attract new donors and keep your mission top of mind with all audiences.

Selecting and optimizing the right technology is one of the most crucial decisions your organization can make. We help nonprofits with this investment from the selection process through the implementation of the system and the training of the staff. We understand that all nonprofits are unique in their mission, staffing, services – and we look at a variety of systems in order to find the best match for needs of your organization. We welcome the opportunity to help you begin putting technology to work for your organization to ensure that your good work will benefit the community for years to come.

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Posted in Donor database, Fund Accounting, Nonprofit, Reporting | No Comments »

Central Vermont Community Action Council Tackles Complex Reporting with Drillpoint

November 23rd, 2010

Many nonprofits must work with the complexities of grants and the regulations that often are unique to each grant. The good news is – with every additional grant, the organization is better funded to meet the needs of the community. The bad news is – with every additional grant there are additional, often one-of-kind requirements and restrictions for reporting. Working with your system’s data to manually create reports that address these requirements may be tolerable for a grant or two; but when you are managing 100 different funds (of which 60 are grants) like Central Vermont Community Action Council, you need to find a way to put technology to work for you.

Sharon Bernard, Finance Director at Central Vermont Community Action Council, found relief with Drillpoint Reports from Capital Business Solutions. Drillpoint compliments her Sage MIP Fund Accounting system. “Initially, we purchased Drillpoint to help with our weatherization grant reporting which, like most of our grant reporting, was manual, tedious and time-consuming,” recalls Bernard. “As I worked with the software, I really got excited. I could envision so many different ways we could use it not only within the finance department, but as a means to help our program directors as well.”

Central Vermont Community Action Council manages $15.5 million in funds and employs approximately 200 people. The organization helps people achieve economic sufficiency through a variety of programs including Head Start, workforce development weatherization, community economic development, transportation, and support services.

“An unexpected benefit was the discovery that I could use Drillpoint for our year-end audit reports,” shares Bernard. “In the past it took days to create the statement of functional expenses, which reports expenses by major program with indirect costs broken out. Now it’s done in a click.”

Recently Bernard received an inquiry from the state asking for a very detailed report, “I was asked to provide the functional expenses report for our support services program with a breakdown by subprograms. It was an unusual request for a report that didn’t exist. However, we were fortunate that we had Drillpoint, without which we would not have been able to satisfy the request by the deadline.”

Bernard will also be using Drillpoint to produce summary reports for each program which will help program directors, executive management, and finance staff, monitor grant spending and the performance of each fund. Each row of these reports shows the net assets roll forward of the individual fund (beginning net assets, total revenue and expenditures, and ending net assets).

“This report helps everyone become more effective in managing the grants and to ensure that we have not over spent or under spent,” says Bernard. “Over spending would require us to tap the organization’s discretionary funds reserve and under spending means we’re not helping as many people as we could be. Drillpoint will help us get a clearer picture of where we are.”

Bernard is very excited about what Drillpoint has delivered to date but even more enthusiastic about what it will allow her to do in the future, “Being an accountant there aren’t very many tools that allow me to be creative and flexible in delivering meaningful data to the organization. Drillpoint gives me that ability. While we’ve certainly put it to good use so far, I realize we have only scratched the surface of what we will be able to do with it and am excited about putting it to use in future projects to improve the efficiency and accuracy of financial reporting and analysis.”

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Posted in Drillpoint, Fund Accounting, Grant funded, Nonprofit, Reporting | No Comments »

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7 Goals for Leveraging Technology to Accomplish Your Nonprofit’s Mission

Central Vermont Community Action Council Tackles Complex Reporting with Drillpoint

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