Government and tribal organizations have specific needs that can be better served with specialized accounting software. If your organization is using multiple systems to handle your day-to-day accounting, payroll, and reporting, it may be time to review what a fund accounting system can do independently. Here, we explore the common issues fund accounting systems solve for government and tribal organizations and then examine how two different entities benefited from implementing fund accounting software.
Fund Accounting = Problem Solving
At its core, fund accounting software can help streamline workflows and quickly provide accurate and robust reporting. It can also help organizations:
- Manages different funds and services
- Simplifies reporting
- Features robust data integration
- Easily handles expenses
- Effortlessly processes accounts payable
- Automatically reconciles budgets, leading to improved budgeting and expense management
You may also find your organization running into 3 very common challenges that fund accounting can also help to address.
Problem: We are short-staffed and can’t hire more people.
Solution: Consolidating your financial systems into one multipurpose fund accounting solution increases efficiency and allows your organization to keep its financial information in a secure system. According to the 2022 Nonprofit Research Study, employees spent 10 hours a week navigating between disparate systems. When these systems were condensed into one, it increased efficiency and freed up time for staff to focus on other mission-centric tasks.
Problem: We rely on external accounting vendors and can’t generate reports fast enough.
Solution: MIP Fund Accounting® features more than 130 report templates that generate in minutes instead of hours or days. MIP creates the actionable insights your organization needs when you need them, instead of on somebody else’s timeline. Create consistent reports with a common language that allows for leadership to make simple comparisons, and create a universal template for staff that allows them to become experts on one system.
Problem: We have multiple accounting systems that do the job. Why should we change?
Solution: When you keep your organization’s financials in one place, you create efficient workflows and processes, use automation to prevent human error, and easily cross-reference figures as you handle other fiscal processes. Our fund accounting solution tracks, reports, and manages finances to comply with complex government requirements and integrates with billing, payment management, and work asset management systems.
Success Stories
Here are two examples of successful organizations that adopted MIP Fund Accounting:
1. The Town of Rising Sun (MD) had a goal to scale and sustain their financial future for business and residents. After a decade of outsourcing all city accounting processes, Town Clerk Judy Melton was determined to find a system that internal staff could implement. The city needed a versatile, easy-to-learn and implement, well-supported accounting system.
Melton wanted a system that would eliminate manual workarounds, decentralized systems, and work to solve staffing constraints. “We had limited resources in our city. Towns have limited budgets, so we had to start with the intention of finding a solution that would grow with us for the long-term,” she said.
Town of Rising Sun was seeking the ability to manage core and critical areas of accounting and administration, gaining proper functionality and flexibility with the right accounting system. In 18 months, the Town of Rising Sun went from researching an accounting software program to implementing a cloud-based accounting solution.
What did they do?
- Researched accounting functionality before they chose a system
- Secured a system that could grow with their town and manage their core areas of accounting and administration
- Considered how a cloud-based solution offered an advantage in supporting a robust disaster recovery plan
- Made sure the software they chose was flexible enough to conform to their needs, rather than having to work with the rigidity of a program that didn’t fit.
After implementing MIP, the town increased reporting efficiency, reduced reliance on outside accounting professionals, and had a cloud-based system it could access anywhere. MIP helped the town gain greater reporting flexibility, superb data integration, and critical budget reconciliations. They also enjoyed consistent and solid support from MIP’s support team. Read their whole story.
2. The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has over 200 employees with seven offices across 15 counties and serves 4,600+ individuals annually. The Ponca Restoration Act established a 15-county Service Delivery Area across Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota and offers a broad range of health, social, educational, and cultural services.
The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska provides dedicated social and cultural services across Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. As their services to members grew, so did their need to find a more robust solution for managing their budget, expenses, human resources, fixed assets, payroll, and direct deposit. Additionally, the accounting team desired a system that would securely and efficiently enable them to track Tribal expenses across all their administrative offices and the ability to change or edit reports directly within a centralized system.
Managing Tribal Council expenses had become very difficult, relying on manual work processes and workarounds. Additionally, The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska wanted to ensure the solution they picked would have strong tech support and training to ensure the shift to the new solution would be easier on the existing finance team. The Tribe also needed a system to streamline their accounts payable bi-weekly processing time.
Working with disparate solutions for over 20 years, The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska wanted to make sure that they were able to find an accounting solution built for managing different funds and the diverse system of services they offered. The Ponca Tribe turned to MIP.
How they benefited:
- With the implementation of MIP’s fund accounting software system, the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska saw a reduction of 50% in the time spent processing its bi-weekly accounts payable.
- They also reduced staff managing that task from two employees to one employee.
- According to Ponca Tribe of Nebraska’s CFO Jacob Olsufka, MIP’s ability to track expenses, budgets, and taxes has allowed growth to skyrocket over the last four years.
If you want to increase efficiency and make better informed financial decisions for your constituents, you want MIP Fund Accounting. Easily streamline reporting and administration workflows with MIP. Learn more about how MIP has served government clients for 40+ years.
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