Not-For-Profit Sage Intacct Makes Processes even sweeter for The M.S. Hershey Foundation

a Sticky Financial Situation

For many years, The Foundation relied on The Hershey Trust Company to carry out all their bookkeeping. While this system seemed to streamline financials, The Foundation continued to grow, and it became evident that it needed its own accounting system.

This was the case when Bridget Beck, Associate Executive Director at The M.S. Hershey Foundation, joined the organization in 2007. "There was no system, no policies, no procedures set," she recalls.

That same year, The Foundation implemented Dynamics GP, and although it addressed some of the issues, it was far from an ideal solution. With separate ticketing, retail and payroll systems (ADP), It was virtually impossible to obtain a holistic view of The Foundation's finances. "We had a lot of things that needed to be set up and built from the ground up... there wasn't one program that could do it all," Beck said.

The situation became even more complicated as it expanded, adding new facilities, such as the building constructed at the gardens in 2016. "My dream was to get a system where all financial aspects could be visible and communicate seamlessly. Ideally, a single platform to manage everything, or at least allow for data exchange between existing systems,” said Beck. 

However, the cost of integration presented a major obstacle. Quotes to integrate the existing systems came in at almost half a million dollars – a significant hurdle for a non-profit organization. "Do you see our financial statements?" Beck recalls saying to a vendor. "We are not-for-profit. I cannot spend half a million dollars on an accounting system." The temporary solution she had was to hire additional staff to manage separate systems, though it was more cost-effective, it was a far less efficient solution.

Processes Melting Together

The arrival of COVID-19 and changes to their current system prompted an internal financial reassessment. Beck researched alternatives and was impressed with the reviews and the endorsement for Sage Intacct. At the same time, their current audit servicer informed them that it would no longer be able to conduct their audit due to staffing limitations. This unexpected development opened the door for change.

“We began working with RKL LLP for our audits. They were the reason I reached RKL eSolutions,” recalled Beck. “I heard very good things about RKL eSolutions, and it was all about perfect fit and perfect timing,” said Beck. “When they heard I was looking for an alternative, they reached out to me. We opened the conversation to see whether this could be the right fit for us”.

Beck explained to the RKL eSolutions team what issues she wanted the system to address as well as the organization’s limitations. "The biggest component to consider was our lack of IT resources. The Foundation doesn't have an IT department, and we simply don't have the expertise to manage our systems effectively. We used Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, which has a robust IT department that manages our backups, email, and security. It just wasn’t working for our financial systems,” She explained. She decided a cloud-based system was a better option. Sage Intacct and the support team at RKL eSolutions, with a single point of contact for support, became the deciding factor in choosing Sage Intacct.

Sweet Success with Sage Intacct

Sage Intacct’s advanced features, like nonprofit revenue recognition, grant management, and multi-entity consolidations, transformed the Foundations workflow. Intacct improved data accuracy by eliminating data entry errors and inconsistencies across different systems to save time and resources.

Beck said that in terms of efficiency, Sage Intacct has been revolutionary: “It has made an unbelievable change. Instead of having to manually enter the daily transactions from both our ticketing and our retail, everything is carried out automatically, and we only go through and proof. This saves us easily 24 hours of reconciling and input each week. For some of our payables entries, what used to take us hours now takes fifteen minutes of our day now that we can import journal detail”!

This dramatic reduction of the workload has freed up valuable resources, allowing the company to focus on strategic initiatives rather than being bogged down by mundane tasks. “We've embarked on projects that have been on my to-do list for years because we have the time to focus on something other than plugging in journal entries.”

The Legacy Continues to FLOURISH

“There is still more to discover, learn and implement. I have asked our dedicated support and implementation person (from RKL eSolutions), to show me the various processes so that I can learn how things work and really dig deep to see how to make this work even better for our needs. We are learning and improving our workflow all the time, and moving forward our goal is to become even more efficient,” said Beck.

But perhaps the biggest achievement would be to have all of the Foundation's financials at such a stage that if she retires, the Foundation can continue without any worry or interruption.

“My goal is to set things up so that The Foundation can easily move forward when I decide it's my time to retire. Right now, other than me, no one knows the entire system. I want to make sure that the efficiencies continue to grow and become more strategic rather than reactive. I want us to shift our focus to our mission,” said Beck.

For The M.S. Hershey Foundation, Sage Intacct delivers greater financial control and the ability to become more proactive. They can focus on making their mission and impact even sweeter for the community and beyond.