United Way of St. Louis
Success Story
Vendor Buyout Prompts United Way Chapter to Switch to AccuFund
UNITED WAY OF GREATER ST. LOUIS — Since 1922, the United Way of Greater St. Louis has been helping 1 in 3 people in the community that it serves, which includes 16 counties in Missouri and Illinois.
The volunteer-driven organization funds nearly 200 local nonprofits, mainly health and human service agencies, enabling them to become stronger and best serve community needs. The agencies help around one million people in the area each year by providing job counseling and training, affordable childcare, assistance to the elderly and people with disabilities, safer communities and disaster relief.
The Search for New Accounting Software Begins
The United Way of Greater St. Louis had an accounting system in place to manage its funding, grant distribution and other financial processes, however the software company was bought out by another accounting software vendor and was not being actively enhanced. The organization wanted to seek out a new vendor as well as a new system.
“Our agency has a bad perception of the new vendor (who took over their old product), mainly because the product was very expensive and getting customized service from the company was not particularly easy,” explained Vander Corliss, vice president of finance and controller at the United Way of Greater St. Louis.
“We like having a personal relationship with our vendors because they come to understand our requirements and provide a solution that will meet those requirements. Then we get the customization that we need.”
AccuFund Offers Personal Service and Power at an Affordable Price
After recalling the positive experience he had with the AccuFund Accounting Suite at another organization, Corliss gave the software company a call. He conducted a search involving several accounting systems, but quickly found that AccuFund was the one that stood out.
“The AccuFund Accounting Suite is a very high quality product that is equivalent to the larger players but at a more affordable price,” states Corliss. “I was already familiar with the Accounting Suite’s ease and power, so I was at a strong comfort level with AccuFund and knew we would be satisfied. With the cost advantages thrown in, it was a very easy decision to go with them.”
A critical requirement that the United Way of Greater St. Louis has of its accounting software system is the ability to interface with its campaign software system.
“The flexibility with which the AccuFund Accounting Suite integrates with the campaign software has been huge,” reports Corliss.
The United Way of Greater St. Louis also implemented AccuFund Access, which allows the organization to provide department managers with access to their own monthly financial reports in the Accounting Suite.
Other features of the AccuFund Accounting Suite that stand out for Corliss and the four other users on his financial team are the “very flexible” report writing, “very user-friendly” interface, and the “great ability” to upload journal entries and transactions easily.
“The only thing to get used to with the AccuFund Accounting Suite is how easy it is to use,” states Corliss. “The ease with uploading vendors and invoices has been most helpful.”
The AccuFund Accounting Suite also enables the United Way of Greater St. Louis to scan all invoices into the Accounts Payable module, which frees them from storing paper invoices indefinitely. The organization keeps the paper invoices through the audit period and then destroys and disposes of them.
“In addition to saving on storage fees, scanning the invoices allows much easier and better access when we need to locate specific purchasing information,” adds Corliss. “We just click on the invoice and we’ll see it.”
In addition to AccuFund’s software, the United Way of Greater St. Louis likes working with the company’s customer service team. “They provide quality phone support,” explains Corliss.
“The AccuFund Accounting Suite is a very high quality product that is equivalent to the larger players but at a more affordable price,” states Corliss. “I was already familiar with the Accounting Suite’s ease and power, so I was at a strong comfort level with AccuFund and knew we would be satisfied. With the cost advantages thrown in, it was a very easy decision to go with them.”
Time and Again, AccuFund Proves its Value
Prior to implementing AccuFund, assembling and distributing the monthly financial reports to 14 department managers took days, but now it only takes minutes. AccuFund’s fast and efficient reporting capabilities have reduced the time it takes to produce a monthly financial report by two-thirds. With AccuFund, the reports are distributed via email automatically.
“Emailing reports to a multitude of departments at one time and allowing our managers to get their reports and access transaction details themselves saves us tons of time,” states Corliss. “For our managers, being able to get those details when they need them is huge.”
For Corliss, it’s been a gratifying experience to use the AccuFund Accounting Suite again and find it is better than ever. “How easy it is to use and how powerful it remains is an astounding combination,” he concludes.
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