Epicor Enterprise Financials - CommunityAmerica Credit Union
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At a Glance: CommunityAmerica Credit Union Industry: Financial Services Employees: 360 employees Logistics: 20 Branches throughout Kansas and Missouri Solution: Epicor Enterprise
Business Challenge Needed a more robust accounting solution as support for their current solution was to be discontinued
Solution A comprehensive enterprise solution with strong financials including multi company capabilities
Business Benefits * Automated fixed assets tracking * All company entities are now on the same accounting system * Capacity to store more historical data within their own solution * More accounting flexibility
Return on Investment * Better control of cash flow * Minimum eight hours saved in fixed asset reporting * New general ledger efficiencies save time
CommunityAmerica Credit Union (CommunityAmerica), originally known as TWA Club Credit Union, was founded by TWA pilot George Duvall in 1940, as a benefit for TWA employees. The credit union grew and prospered over the years changing its name first to Members America Credit Union in 1992, and then to CommunityAmerica Credit Union in 1998.
CommunityAmerica strives every day to meet their members’ needs. Part of reaching this goal is staying strong and efficient behind the front line of direct member service; it means having a strong company infrastructure. Financial demands from the management team, coupled with an accounts payable (AP) system that was just about to go offline with the implementation of a new front office banking solution platform, meant it was time to start looking for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.
Amongst other things, CommunityAmerica knew they were looking for a more flexible and robust AP solution that would provide better cash flow management. After looking at JD Edwards (Oracle), Dynamics GP (Microsoft) and IPS Sendero (Summit Information Systems), they concluded Epicor was the solution that best met their needs.
Getting a Better Handle on Their Own Finances On the old system, CommunityAmerica was very limited in its accounting abilities: when the month closed, they could no longer enter invoices. They had to accrue for any anticipated invoices that had not come in before the month's end.
“It was very frustrating knowing that when the month end came, we had better have everything in because the old system had no flexibility,” said Alex Valverde, project manager for CommunityAmerica. “At the end of the month that was it, and if you left something out, then it had to be accrued. That is not how an accounting system should run. Accountants should run the solution, not the other way around. With Epicor, invoices can be recorded after the month’s end, and this results in more exact financial reporting for us.”
Cash flow management was also an issue for CommunityAmerica under the old system, they had no control over the order in which their invoices were processed and paid. When they did a check run, every invoice that had been entered had to be paid; there was no function that allowed for categorization and specific payment.
A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned CommunityAmerica has and will continue to save time and money in daily operations with the implementation of Epicor Enterprise.
Fixed asset management was previously tracked through a spreadsheet. Since implementing Epicor Enterprise, there has been significant savings of time thanks to process automation. Entering and running reports on monthly depreciation used to take one full day. Now, the same task can be completed in 15 minutes or less.
CommunityAmerica is a not-for-profit organization, but they do have a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary which in turn owns other subsidiaries: TruHome Solutions mortgage brokerage and CommunityAmerica Select Equity- manufactured homes funding. With their old solution, multiple accounting systems were required. With Epicor’s multi-company capabilities, they were able to put all three divisions on the same accounting system.
“The ability to roll-up all company entities into one system has saved us time and money,” said Valverde.
Moving Forward with Things in Order The transition to Epicor was very smooth. CommunityAmerica is a Microsoft shop – this was a huge help because they had to be up and running in 45 days. The use of Microsoft SQL script made the data transfer easier, as well as interfaces to other systems, and allowed them to finish implementation within their strict timeline. Now the management team has much easier access to the information they need to make better informed business decisions.
The general ledger (GL) is significantly improved with Epicor Enterprise. Prior to implementation, employees had to enter individual journal entry line by line, which was very tedious and time consuming. Now journal entries can be imported directly from Microsoft® Excel®. Additionally, repeating or recurring entries can be set up to post automatically. This has streamlined process entry, saving money and time. From a member service perspective, the Epicor solution has enabled them to gain efficiencies in their day-to-day accounting processes, freeing up time for them to provide support to the tellers that are on the front line of member service.
Epicor Enterprise Financials - CommunityAmerica Credit Union
