Kahnawà:ke Education Center

ERP solution reduces monthly closing time by 75 percent

Education

Education Center Hero

Located just outside Montreal, the Kahnawà:ke Education Center (KEC) is a school system with three schools, over 1,000 students, and more than 300 staff working on site and remotely. Realizing that their legacy accounting system didn’t allow for optimal data flow, leading to manual entry, needless duplication, and time spent reconciling after the fact, they turned to MNP for help.

Services provided

  • Digital advisory
  • Solution selection
  • ERP implementation
  • ERP integration & configuration
  • Quality assurance planning
  • Project management
  • Customer Success Program

The challenge

KEC was experiencing a number of issues, including the need to manually get managers to approve purchase orders. With three schools and no way of easily getting timely information to various stakeholders, finance also had to spend time handing out hard copies of reports. The information was already dated, diminishing the ability to make strong decisions based on real-time data.

The organization also had to track funding against various programs manually, and when programs changed, the finance team had to delete and create many new GL accounts. KEC needed to deliver information faster, and improve forecasting and operational efficiency.

KEC turned to their audit partner, MNP, for a solution and were introduced to the MNP Digital team.

Teal quotation marks

We'd always end up having to manipulate this one spreadsheet. It was a ton of time wasted.

– Paul Nicholas, Director of Finance and Administration, KEC

The solution

MNP Digital met with KEC for a series of discovery sessions to develop a list of KEC’s requirements and then demonstrated possible solutions. After seeing the demos, the organization chose Sage Intacct because it is cloud-based, which allowed for optimal data flow and remote work, and it offers flexible dimensions, customized dashboards, and real-time data.

MNP worked with KEC every step of the way while leading the setup, configuration, and optimization of Sage Intacct, managing the project and data migration from start to finish, and collaborated to deliver in-depth training to the three members of the finance team. To free up the finance team’s time, MNP trained more than 30 other users throughout the organization.

Following implementation, KEC took advantage of MNP Digital’s Customer Success Program, which provides unlimited support, quarterly reports on new features, and an annual system audit. Through this program, KEC was able to save time by getting MNP to create customized dashboards and reports for the organization’s users.

Teal quotation marks

MNP helped us with identifying what the need was – and within a week, we had the dashboard ready for testing and use.

– Paul Nicholas, Director of Finance and Administration, KEC

The result

Sage Intacct has streamlined data for KEC, reducing the chart of accounts by almost 80 percent — from 1,800 lines to about 400. The ERP system’s modular architecture also lets them add and deactivate programs in the system without having to create or delete GL accounts.

Month closing used to take three weeks; now it’s done in just one week. The finance team uses the available time for risk management and strategic planning — higher value work that will make a significant difference to the organization.

Approvals are quicker and easier through the user dashboards, which also provide real-time information to anyone anytime, from anywhere. This has resulted in more people in the organization participating in keeping KEC efficient and accountable.

Teal quotation marks

People are just starting to realize the power of this tool, and how it can make their life and role a lot easier. It’s been transformational.

– Paul Nicholas, Director of Finance and Administration, KEC

Ready to get started?

We’re always looking for new challenges and teammates.