St. Therese of the Little Flower chooses Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Serenic Navigator to provide accounting and communication services for 160 parishes in the Catholic diocese.
REDMOND, Wash., May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp. today announced that St. Therese of the Little Flower Inc., which provides accounting and communication services to the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wis., has selected Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Serenic Navigator to centralize and standardize accounting for all 160 parishes and 62 schools in the diocese.
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The Microsoft Dynamics NAV technology, embedded with Navigator, an application from Serenic Software Inc., will replace 15 types of software acquired independently by the parishes and schools. The previous software included Sage Accpac, Sage BusinessWorks, Sage MAS 90, Peachtree by Sage, CAD Shareware, CheckMark MultiLedger, Intuit QuickBooks and Quicken.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a business management solution for small and midsize organizations. It helps simplify and streamline highly specialized business processes, providing industry-specific functionality relevant to the local needs of regional operations. Serenic Navigator, a Microsoft Dynamics NAV-embedded solution, builds upon the Microsoft solution to provide critical functionality such as fund accounting and management of organizational budgets to nonprofit organizations such as the diocese.
Diocesan, parish and school leaders selected Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Serenic Navigator after reviewing 40 industry-specific software solutions.
“We needed to standardize our accounting for all diocesan parishes and schools,” said Paula Nault, financial systems consultant for St. Therese of the Little Flower. “The solution had to be scalable to serve diverse needs while providing a standard chart of accounts structure and standard reporting capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Serenic Navigator provide those capabilities at a price we can afford.”
Together with Serenic Navigator, Microsoft Dynamics NAV software will ease communications challenges the diocese had been experiencing and help it overcome the problems of compiling multiple reports from parishes and schools with different accounting capacities. Moreover, pastors and other leaders are now taking on more parishes and schools and need a common accounting system to manage them. In addition, access to technological expertise may not be readily available in many parishes.
To resolve these issues, St. Therese will deliver its Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Serenic Navigator accounting capabilities through the Web, so that all parishes will communicate via the Internet, with a common database accessible online.
To implement the solution, St. Therese is working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner eSoftware Professionals (eSP), headquartered in Portland, Ore. eSP will implement the solution and activate a complete range of accounting functions, including general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, purchase orders, bank reconciliation, budgeting, direct deposit, cash management, allocations, and fixed assets, to be used by all parishes. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Serenic Navigator solution will be configured according to accounting needs so that each parish and its school will have access only to the functions it needs and wants.
St. Therese of the Little Flower and the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay look forward to a number of anticipated benefits that the solution will provide:
— Better time allocation. With an automated, integrated and standardized
accounting system for the parishes and schools, more time can be
devoted to the vital ministries of the church. Microsoft Dynamics NAV
with Serenic Navigator will make the administrative side of the
pastors’ and other leaders’ work more manageable. More timely and
accurate reports will be available to church leadership, finance
councils, parishioners and parents of school students. The integrated
database allows information to become more accessible to the diocese to
save time in gathering data.
— Cost savings. The diocese’s parishes and schools expect to be able to
reduce redundancies, save money on maintenance and no longer develop
expensive work-around solutions that were needed with its 15 software
solutions. In addition, parishes and schools will avoid the potentially
catastrophic expense of losing data after a physical server problem.
All the data now will be backed up in a Web-hosted environment from the
integrated database. By implementing a single hosted solution, the
diocese expects to eliminate the costs involved in backup management,
software updates and additional IT infrastructure at the parish level.
— More reliable access to more complete information. St. Therese expects
to be able to provide access to advanced technology solutions that
individual parishes may not have been able to afford on their own, and
expects that more information will be available in real time. In
addition, by standardizing the chart of accounts and providing template
report formats for the parishes and schools, St. Therese expects to
provide stronger reporting to finance councils, boards of education and
the diocese.
— Time savings. Instead of needing to prepare consolidated reports
manually, the diocese will benefit from the Microsoft Dynamics
solution’s enterprise reporting capabilities. These are expected to
significantly reduce the time needed to communicate financial
information from the parish, as well as from school leadership.
— More accurate data. Previously, parishes and schools produced reports
for the diocese by printing their data and then manually completing
paper forms or by completing online data questionnaires. Now, with its
import and export capabilities, Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Serenic
Navigator expects to eliminate duplication of data entry and the
inherent entry errors that can occur.
— Better planning. The parishes and schools will be able to allocate
their funds more effectively throughout the year with the cash flow
reports and budgeting tools provided by the solution. Now they have the
tools to determine, for example, if dollars will be available to fund a
youth ministry program, based on forecasts.
“Much like any other business, the day-to-day operation of a parish has grown in complexity over the years,” said Deacon Tim Reilly, director of administration for the diocese. “Through the collaboration of our parish, school and diocesan leaders, we are adopting solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Serenic Navigator to help us streamline important business functions and use technology to our advantage.”
St. Therese expects the combination of Microsoft Dynamics NAV technology and Serenic Navigator functionality to enable parish and school staff and volunteers alike to spend more time on their most important efforts.
“For organizations that have a large number of operating centers, as does the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Microsoft Dynamics products can unify their data to support fast, accurate and insightful decision-making,” said Michael Park, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s U.S. Dynamics business. “Microsoft Dynamics helps organizations plan their futures and advance their missions by furnishing a clear and consistent view of information across the enterprise.”
About St. Therese of the Little Flower
St. Therese of the Little Flower, Inc. provides accounting and communications services for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, its agencies and parishes. The diocese is composed of 350,000 Catholics who carry out the mission of its 160 parishes and 62 schools. The diocese employs 180, while its parishes and schools employee approximately 3,000 in its 16-county area.
About eSoftware Professionals
eSoftware Professionals, of Portland, Oregon, knows that understanding the business environment is the key to making smart technology choices. It offers Microsoft Dynamics NAV software solutions for a wide array of businesses and organizations. For more than a decade, eSP has tailored information technology systems to its clients’ needs. Thousands of small, medium and large companies have improved workflow, enhanced customer satisfaction and increased cash flow by consulting with eSP.
About Serenic Software
Serenic Software is a global provider of financial and operational software solutions for nonprofits and the public sector. Built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Serenic’s products deliver fully integrated solutions that can, in many organizations, eliminate the need for multiple third-party business applications.
A Microsoft Gold-certified Industry Solutions Vendor, Serenic’s products include the highly acclaimed Serenic Navigator, Serenic DonorVision, Serenic AwardVision, Serenic CommunityCare and Serenic MinistryView. In addition, Serenic is the exclusive developer of the human resources and payroll products for Microsoft Dynamics NAV users in North America.
Serenic was recently named the Microsoft Dynamics 2007 Outstanding ISV of the Year and earned membership in the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle and the Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club, both prestigious achievements that acknowledge Serenic as a top performer within the Microsoft partner community.
Serenic Corporation is a public company with offices in Edmonton, Alberta, and Lakewood, Colorado. It trades under the symbol “SER” on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada. Additional information about the Company is available at http://www.serenic.com/.
About Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer-relationship and supply-chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business-management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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