Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance; Coastal Plain Regional Library System
Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance;
Coastal Plain Regional Library System
Performing Payroll, Budgets, Audits,
and Reporting Beyond Status Quo
Challenge:
Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance; Coastal Plain Regional Library System was relying on a provider that couldn’t handle their complex funding streams or offer a payroll module.
Searching for:
Benefits of MIP:
About Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance; Coastal Plain Regional Library System
Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance (GPLAA) is part of a consortium of library systems in Georgia. The Coastal Plain Regional Library System has more than 60 employees and manages a $2.5 million dollar budget. The Coastal Plain Regional Library System is a free public agency committed to supporting and contributing to educational, informational, cultural, and recreational needs of its communities and schools. The library encourages literacy through its collections of reference and current popular materials for library users of all ages. Internet access and online resources to assist patrons in living successful and rewarding lives is now a standard in all of their libraries.
Change is Hard (but worth it!)
Libraries aren’t known for being renegades, but for the 40-member GPLAA; Coastal Plain Regional Library System there’s no stopping progress when it comes to best meeting the needs of their communities and staff. For over a decade they relied on a previous provider for their accounting software solution. With an ongoing ecosystem of complex funding streams, they knew it was time to consider other options.
In researching other accounting software, they also discovered that their current accounting solution provider was not going to offer a payroll module in their next product. That was a deal breaker.
Pain Points
The alliance desired a fund management software product that was more intuitive and could support a wide range of accounting skill sets. The software also had to be affordable because of the library’s commitment to donors, grants, and the public system. The alliance had to secure a system that was easy to use as some of the alliance members were hesitant to change the system in place. Additionally, the library system also needed an integrated payroll, that could easily handle different pay periods and dates.
As Kim Spencer, CFO notes, “We’re very public service oriented and must be able to pay our staff effectively. We’re all territorial about paying our employees and want to be able to ensure we fix any problem with paychecks immediately.”
Finally, the alliance needed strong customer support, as their experience with the previous provider was difficult at best, and non-existent at times. Spencer notes, “We would call, and they would say they didn’t have an account with us, so it was often time-consuming and not rewarding.”
Results
The GPLAA selected MIP Fund Accounting for their new accounting management program. Their team is delighted with functionality including the exporting feature on MIP which has provided superb donor/grant reporting for auditor visits. MIP exports to Excel seamlessly and there is no need to reformat.
“When my auditor is here and wants to look at what I spent on a grant, it takes seconds to pull the report and just hand it to him. MIP exports so beautifully. With this program we have software that does not try to force you to change for it, it changes for you.”
-Kim Spencer, CFO
The mixed skill set of users has also benefited from the free customer tech support that MIP offers and have found filtering data in customizing reporting much easier to pull.
Spencer notes, “It’s a great use of our library resources, cost-effective and financial reporting is very flexible. Libraries are funded by so many different sources and being able to pull reports when the funding agents ask is so important. We can just respond so quickly.”
With more than 40 years of experience, MIP Fund Accounting® is the nation’s leading nonprofit, cloud-based SaaS fund accounting software
that manages multiple funding streams, and helps your organization accomplish its mission.