CLIENT PROFILE
The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities advances its vision of a healthy and equitable society through the excellence, distinction and influence of its national network of social sector organizations.
THE SITUATION
The Alliance was using an aging accounting solution that was growing increasingly difficult to support. Furthermore, the system was not scalable to meet their growing business needs. The lack of business intelligence with limited reporting options also meant processing data was very labor intensive. At Wipfli’s recommendation, the organization moved to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
THE STRATEGY
The Alliance felt confident that Wipfli was the best implementation partner for the new software because of Wipfli’s large local presence in Milwaukee (which meant meetings could take place in person), experienced nonprofit practice and ability to bring in diverse consulting resources when needed.
Having an implementation partner was crucial to helping ensure Alliance staff not only know how to use Business Central to its full extent but also could become a Business Central implementation partner with their own nonprofit clients. For example, instead of simply moving forward with migrating the Alliance’s data from its old system, the Wipfli team trained the Alliance staff on this process, helping them to be fully independent on the software.
THE RESULTS
Business Central proved its worth almost immediately. While it used to take 20 minutes to two hours to generate an income statement in Dynamics SL, it now takes 15 seconds in Business Central. Designing and adjusting reports is now much easier and faster.
Plus, there’s no more need to use spreadsheets to track where to route approvals or emails to facilitate the process. With Business Central, invoices are routed completely within the system. With workflows consolidated into one place, there is a lot more automation of what were previously manual, time-consuming processes for the Alliance staff.
Lastly, Alliance staff rave about the much more frequent updates from Microsoft that come with using cloud-based software. There’s a stronger sense of security that the software will be supported for a long time, and there’s excitement around the fact that Alliance staff can submit feedback that will be taken into account for the next release.With the combined power of a strong consulting partner and strong technology, Alliance staff feel fully supported.
