CSA Software Solutions is a partner of Red Wing Software, primarily selling CenterPoint Fund Accounting and Payroll to municipals/cities within the southern U.S. CSA recently wrote up a case study on one of their new customers: the City of Santa Anna, Texas. Here is their story.

LOCATION:

City of Santa Anna, Texas
Population 1,100

CSA CLIENT SINCE:

May 2015

CURRENT SOFTWARE:

CenterPoint Fund Accounting and Payroll
(former QuickBooks user)

KEY BENEFITS OF CENTERPOINT:

Quick and Simple Payroll

“Our payroll is now done in 30 minutes. CSA installed our payroll with all our deductions and city benefits already set up. It’s just a click of a button and payroll is already calculated, including vacation and sick time, and I just print the payroll checks. I now get informative payroll tax reports and the liabilities are already set up, making paying them much easier.”

In Depth Fund Accounting: No Signing In and Out of Different Companies

“No more signing in and out of each fund (company). When I have an invoice that needs to be paid out of two funds or need to research something with a transaction search, CenterPoint allows me to move around easily.”

Intuitive and Easy Bank Reconciliations

“I always dreaded the first of the month when bank statements had to be reconciled. Now it’s so much easier with CenterPoint. If I make a mistake and post to the wrong account it’s easy to fix...no voiding and reentering. Just correct and save and CenterPoint changes everything, while giving a secure audit trail.”

Customizable Council Reports

“The financial reports are like no other. Not only do they supply our council with information on the expense and revenue for the city, it helps me keep up with our budget and when something needs to be amended throughout the year.”

Awesome Support

“The support staff at CSA is amazing. They are not just a support staff but have become Friends.”

• Mark’s (Business Development) granddaughter Alissa was in the Miss Goodhue pageant. Mark and his wife Pam moved their daughter and her family to Texas. While there they visited Kemah Board Walk in Galveston Bay.
• Chad (Sales) and his wife Rachel and son welcomed the birth of their beautiful daughter Remi on July 21st. Congratulations to all.
• Dick (Software Development) and Marlene (Support Specialist) and their family of four married daughters and 12 grandchildren vacation together every summer in one house. This year was Mishawaka, IN, in a house with two swimming pools, a hot tub, a gymnasium, a tennis court, a fire pit, and a baseball diamond. It was an awesome way to keep kids happy and occupied without going anywhere! Their 4th of July celebration included a South Bend Cubs winning game with amazing fireworks at the end. You know it was some great family time and memories achieved when the kids are crying because it’s time to go home and the adults are exhausted.
• Carole’s (Staff Accountant) daughter Zoe and her Half-Arabian gelding RF Runs In The Family "Finny" won overall High Point Arabian at the Arabian Horse Amateur Alliance show.
• Greg (Support Specialist) and his family enjoyed a vacation to England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Pictured here at Warwich Castle in England.
• Red Wing Software is sponsoring a company team for the upcoming Twin Cities Ten Mile Race! The team is excited to have been chosen, since the race can be entered only by random drawing. The Red Wing Software team consists of: Katrina (Administrative Assistant), Stephanie (Marketing), Rachel (Chad – Sales, wife), Jill (Chad – Sales, sister), Lizz (Matt – Sales, wife) and Kathryn (Mike – QA, wife). The race will be held on October 9th, 2016. Stay tuned for team updates along the way!

Laura O’Donnell writes smart content on behalf of the business software experts at TGO Consulting. As an avid writer and learner, she loves to use her skills for engaging others in important topics in creative and effective ways. When she is not working, she loves meeting new people, traveling, and bringing her Pinterest dreams to life. Find her on LinkedIn.

If you’ve never used automated processes to help run your business, you might not even know there’s a problem. All the paper forms and procedures that have served you well before may very well be slowing you down. Of course, documentation is important in running virtually any organization, but waiting for approval and filing requisitions by paper will create inevitable slowdowns, making your work far less efficient than it would otherwise be.

Now, imagine no need for the proper form(s) for every task. Imagine being able to see all the processes that keep your business going, and having instant knowledge of where everything is going well, and where you could definitely speed things up with a little adjustment. If you want everything to run like a well-oiled machine, it’s a good plan to let an actual machine do some of the heavy lifting by automating your business processes.

1. Improved Communication

   In order for anything to get done, the efforts of everyone involved have to be coordinated. The unautomated process involves a lot of memos, reminders, sticky notes, meetings, and emails. Something is bound to get lost or miscommunicated. Business process automation smooths the process, putting everything everyone needs to know in a single place. If someone has a problem and wants you to know it, you can see it right away in the system dashboard and address it. An automated process creates a unified system. No emails or memos necessary.

2. Everyone Is Accountable

   A big part of business success is everyone working together. Each person knows what to do and how to do it, so the next person in the line can do their job. Someone’s got to start the work at the right time, someone’s got to approve a step and certify it complete before the next step can be taken. Automation ensures everyone knows where they are in the process, so they can do their jobs with greater efficiency than ever before. Each step will have someone explicitly in charge. You’ll know at a glance who authorized what, who approved what, who rejected what. Once you’ve got your processes automated, you’ll never hear: “But I thought he was going to do that!”

3. Fewer Errors

   One of the best things about a computer is that it can do monotonous tasks without its mind drifting elsewhere. Once you’ve got the process established, the machine will do it over and over again, flawlessly and tirelessly. A human at the same job, no matter how skilled or dedicated, will make a small mistake from time to time, and these errors can go unseen for a long time, until they accumulate into a major problem. This can cost a great deal in both time and money. In fact, depending upon the nature of the mistakes, it could even cost you customers. Not only will you have fewer (or in some cases, no) errors, but you’ll inevitably save money in the process. And of course, you’ll increase goodwill with the public. Any orders will be fulfilled more swiftly, and any support issues will be flagged and sent to the right person automatically so it can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

4. Deeper Understanding

   Getting everything running smoothly is just the beginning. There’s always going to be room for improvement, and your new automated business processes can show you just how to do that. Thanks to the new transparency in how your business operates, you’ll be able to see exactly how everything is put together in a concrete way. Once you see that, you’ll be able to see where things can be tuned up a bit or, just as importantly, where you need to leave things alone because they’re working just fine. An automated system saves all the data you’ve accumulated through the time you use it, giving you plenty of information to determine the next steps you should take. Is one process still taking longer than it should? You’ll know, and be able to come up with a way to trim that time a bit.

5. Superior Organization

   A business generally needs a chain to function. Every function has someone to perform it, and once that’s done, it passes on to the next person and the next task. With automated approvals in place, each step has the proper people assigned to it, so the boss can do her job while everyone else does theirs. There’s never any need for constant consultation or for a manager to be looking over everyone’s shoulder anymore. The chain of command, however it’s structured in your business, will no longer be quite so tangled. Those are only five reasons to automate your business processes, but truthfully, there are many, many more. The best way to learn what they are is to find out for yourself by researching what system will work best for you and your company.

This month, I want to share some observances made on a recent business trip. First, it’s a long drive from Red Wing, MN to Sheridan, WY, but the landscape and sites along the way are something everyone should experience at some point, and the destination is breathtaking.

Several speakers shared their experiences on how their businesses are structured and how they use financial information to manage decision-making processes in their operations. It was refreshing to see so many Red Wing Software users, and users of other software, take advantage of the capabilities in their choice of products to really analyze their situation and make sound decisions to improve profitability.

It was clear our hosts for the meeting held everyone that worked at the company to a very high standard, and likewise treated everyone in the organization like family. We should all strive to live up to the standards that were exhibited by their management team.

Finally, as part of the meeting, we attended a rodeo. When I see the physical condition that these cowboys and cowgirls must be in to execute their chosen profession, and the danger they put themselves in, it makes me feel fortunate to be in the software business. About the only time someone at Red Wing Software gets hurt is if they slip on the ice between their car and the office.

I want to congratulate Chad in our sales department on the arrival of their newest addition to their family. A beautiful baby girl.

- Ken Hilton, President

Crist Brothers Orchards featured in Fruit Grower News

Crist Brothers Orchards, a Red Wing Software customer, was featured in the July 2016 issue of Fruit Grower News. The story, entitled Modern Storage, describes how Crist Brothers Orchards and the Crist family use energy-efficient storage to improve the quality of their apples.

Willow Bend Farms featured in Farm Journal's MILK

Red Wing Software customer Willow Bend Farms was featured in the July/August 2016 issue of Farm Journal’s MILK publication. In the article, Banking on Dreams, John Mueller of Willow Bend Farms explains how they help employees build equity and build their own dreams.