Customer Stories
How the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Streamlined Its Audit with FloQast
Operating the accounting department in a large nonprofit is often a difficult undertaking. According to the Stanford Review on The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle, many of today’s nonprofits are drowning inside a failing infrastructure with a lack of “sturdy information technology systems” in place.
For the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, antiquated accounting systems were causing the annual audit to take an inordinate amount of time. When the audit regularly stretched six months or more, the team knew there was a serious technology problem. They needed a modern accounting solution to speed things up.
One might say their prayers were answered when the Archdiocese replaced the accounting team’s ancient on-premises ERP system with cloud-based Sage Intacct. Not long after, the team deployed FloQast’s close management software, ensuring that the month-end close was streamlined and setting the Archdiocese up for a much smoother audit the following year. When that time came, they found they were able to cut their audit time from seven months to four, nearly in half.
TERMINATING TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE
Before implementing FloQast, the Archdiocese lacked formal checklists documenting month-end close processes. Controller Tom Twilling knew his organization had to move past tribal knowledge or they’d be in trouble.
“We had complete turnover in the department, so we really had to compile daily, weekly, and quarterly tasks into a spreadsheet,” he said. But spreadsheets weren’t ideal for tracking the month-end close. After seeing FloQast in action at a Sage conference, Twilling exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, this is everything I wanted!”
REMOVING REDUNDANCIES
Twilling loves what he gets with Sage Intacct, but he wanted even more, noting “Intacct works beautifully, but you still have people making entries and changes so you’re constantly checking the [close] spreadsheet to make sure it’s in balance with your audit number.”
During last year’s audit, Twilling says “I probably ran through that process a dozen times. This year, I didn’t have to do that. [FloQast] really has become my easy button.”
MORE CONTROL AND AWARENESS
The accounting team at the Archdiocese raves about the combination of Sage Intacct and FloQast.
“It really is night and day,” noted Assistant Controller David Abele, comparing the differences following the implementation of their new software. “The time FloQast has saved us is in the months rather than days or hours. Our audit took twice as long before.”
