"I fell in love with the people that you all selected to bring the agency on because they had patience...we became personal."
Products
Key Features
General Ledger
Accounts Payable
Budget
Payroll
Bank Reconciliation
Accounts Receivable Reporting
Encumbrances
Purchase Orders with Encumbrances
Data Import Export
Additional Executive View User
Forms Designer
Direct Deposit
50%
improvement in audit preparation time
50%
improvement in speed to create reports
$220
million in local grants funds
Lowcountry Community Action Agency was looking to upgrade to software that featured internal controls and could cut audit preparation time. The agency sought out software that would produce grant reports much faster, reduce the burden of audits, and save time on budgeting. They found MIP Accounting and gained a supportive team from implementation to everyday execution.
Challenge & Solution
The agency needed to save time accounting for and managing budgets, grant reports for over 20 local, state, and federal grants totaling over $16 million annually, and payroll for 70-plus employees.
Results
With Tamika Shiggs, fiscal officer, at the helm and MIP by her side, the agency cut its audit preparation time by 50%, from six months to three months. They share view-only access, through an Executive View License, with their auditor, eliminating the time and costs to print all documents or upload them to a secure file transfer service. By including the auditor at the very start of the process, they streamlined communication. When Lowcountry’s auditor has a question, they reach out, and the agency quickly and easily uploads the necessary documentation.
Before Shiggs joined Lowcountry in October 2021, she worked with them in another capacity and knew their internal controls could be improved. MIP’s robust internal controls now segment the agency’s information by title or role, allowing Lowcountry to control who and which roles can access financial data.
“MIP is all about internal controls,” Shiggs said. “I can lock a grant, flag a grant when the line item or budget is at a certain percentage or before it goes over.”
When it came to budgeting, Lowcountry cut the amount of time spent developing budgets by nearly 50%. With the old software, they had to start with a blank budget each year. With MIP, they use a past year’s budget as a starting template for new budgets, which saves considerable time and prevents data entry mistakes.
They saw immense benefits with grants too. With 20-plus grants, the agency needed a way to easily and efficiently track and report on them. With MIP, the agency now tracks grants across multiple budget years and creates reports however needed, whether starting blank, from previous reports, or from a template to save hours of time.
“I love the way that you can report quality monthly, yearly, however you desire, whatever the request may be,” Shiggs said. “… You can specify the grants, identify your object code and also it allows you to forecast. It is very user-friendly when it comes down to the fundamental part of the grants and the funding.”
Above all else, Shiggs and Lowcountry wanted a trusted partner that would make the implementation process easy and provide support for questions or issues that might come up in the process of transitioning accounting software. With nearly 200 years of combined experience, MIP’s support team partnered with the agency and was readily available to provide complete support.
“Whenever we reach out, … you all find a result, and if you can’t find a result immediately, you don’t just leave us hanging out there,” Shiggs said.
About Momentive Software
Momentive Software amplifies the impact of over 30,000 purpose-driven organizations in over 30 countries. Mission–driven organizations and associations rely on the company’s cloud-based software and services to solve their most critical challenges: engage the people they serve, simplify operations, and grow revenue.
Built with reliability at the core and strategically focused on events, careers, fundraising, financials, and operations, our solutions suite is bound by a common purpose to serve the organizations that make our communities a better place to live.