From humble beginnings to a financial leader.
Mountain America Credit Union (MACU) has a rich history rooted in community and service. The company was founded by a group of colleagues at a telephone company who established a co-op in order to help one another out. From there, MACU has evolved to be the ninth-largest credit union in the nation. This growth is underscored by the company¡¯s mission to help its members improve their financial health and achieve their financial dreams.
However, rapid expansion and a commitment to member service in a complex financial landscape presented operational challenges, particularly for the finance and accounting functions.
The weight of legacy systems.
As MACU grew, its legacy financial systems struggled. ¡°We couldn¡¯t keep up with our own growth. I needed to provide real-time information to our management team, our executive leaders, and the whole organization, so there was access to and transparency in our financial reports,¡± Tom Sayasith, VP of finance and controller, notes. The existing infrastructure was a hurdle. ¡°Like most financial institutions, we were set up in a legacy format,¡± Sayasith explains, ¡°with a reliance on spreadsheets and text files.¡±
Before ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, critical financial data existed within MACU¡¯s core teller platform. ¡°Anytime we wanted to create financial statements, we had to pull that down into Excel, and create worksheets in order to produce the financial statements,¡± Alysia Marsh, vice president of accounting operations, recalls. This caused inefficiencies. Team members who were on the expense and supplier side had to access three or four different systems in order to find the information that they needed. Fixed asset balancing took almost a full day at the end of each month.
Extending success: A unified platform.
The decision to deploy?²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Financial Management?was a natural progression, as MACU had already had success with?²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ HCM?since 2014. ¡°We had over five years with ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ. The teams have been happy to use it. The reporting has been great. The usability was just there for us,¡± says Sayasith.
This positive history was key. ¡°Our organization was familiar with the infrastructure, so it was the most seamless solution to integrate into the accounting world,¡± Sayasith explains. Marsh adds that a driving force was also the desire to separate financial operations from the core teller platform. ¡°As we looked at ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, we saw the benefit of bringing the people and the money together.¡±
When we moved to ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Financial Management, it allowed us to have one single platform for our HCM, our payroll, and our financials. This gave us easy access to all our data, as well as reports to do better analysis.
VP of Finance and Controller
A new era of financial clarity.
The deployment of ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Financial Management, ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Accounting Center, and ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Prism Analytics marked a turning point in efficiency gains. Automating data ingestion with ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Accounting Center and ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Prism Analytics saved one team member at least three hours a day during close. Fixed asset balancing, once a day-long task, now takes less than an hour. The supplier team, who previously juggled three to four different vendors, consolidated? operations on ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ and streamlined its workflow.
Beyond time savings, ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ provided data agility. ¡°We went from a 31,000 GL chart to a chart of accounts that is more dynamic,¡± Sayasith explains. ¡°As a team, we can drill into the information based on the work tags, the ledgers, and get information in a way that works for us.¡±
Empowering teams, driving value.
Using ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Financial Management has reduced the accounting team¡¯s dependency on the IT department. ¡°My team can focus on what actually matters with the financial reports and provide the analysis that management is looking for,¡± says Sayasith.?
The benefits extend organizationwide. ¡°As we move into our budgeting season, our managers have more insight into where their team is allocating costs,¡± says Sayasith. Previously, accounting spent hours researching expenses for over 100 cost centers. Marsh adds, ¡°Now, they have more time to strategically analyze the data instead of spending so much time compiling it.¡±
With ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ, we are able to provide the financial statements that our credit union is looking for quickly and accurately.
Vice President of Accounting Operations
Future-focused with a trusted partner.
¡°We know that ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ is a partner that can scale with our future growth,¡± says Sayasith. ¡°As we continue to look at the options that ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ has, we can improve what things need to look like for our end users,¡± adds Marsh.
MACU is also exploring emerging technologies like ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ Illuminate?. ¡°With this partnership, we know that we will be able to drive alignment across our organization for our team members,¡± Sayasith concludes. By embracing a modern financial platform, MACU is poised to lead and effectively serve its members for decades.