Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance; Coastal Plain Regional Library: MIP Accounting Success Story

Libraries aren’t known for being renegades, but for the 40-member Georgia Public Library Accounting Alliance; 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.

“I considered the previous software to be not at all user-friendly. I find MIP much more intuitive and I feel like I spend less time fighting the software to get the information I want out,” said Kim Spencer, CFO of Coastal Plain Regional Library System.

Challenge & Solution

The alliance desired an accounting 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 Spencer said, “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 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,” Spencer said. “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.”

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.

“It’s a great use of our library resources, cost-effective and financial reporting is very flexible,” Spencer said. “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.”

About Momentive Software

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