Canada’s largest protestant Christian denomination – the United Church of Canada – needed an IT environment that could keep up with future growth and changes. As the organization was already using Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Azure Cloud services, they wanted to transition their back office and accounting to the Cloud. With the advisory and mentorship support of 360 Visibility, the United Church of Canada was able to transition to Dynamics 365 Business Central from an older on-premises version of Dynamics NAV. This upgrade allowed the organization to streamline complicated processes and integrations by leveraging standard functionality in Business Central. The organization can now conduct business securely and remotely, reduce the future cost of ownership by significantly lowering the cost of subsequent upgrades to back-office systems and eliminated customizations that are no longer required. These changes helped the United Church of Canada streamline business processes, integrate with other applications, and perform complicated allocations and Fund Accounting procedures.
“With the upgrade to Dynamics 365 Business Central with Tangicloud’s Fundamentals fund accounting package, our organization has streamlined our reporting and audit process, which has saved our team countless hours!” – Harry Li, Controller – United Church of Canada.
A Modern Take on Fund Accounting for Non-Profits
Audit and compliance requirements continue to evolve and become stricter. With the current state of remote and flexible work environments, the need for a cloud-based accounting solution was critical to the ongoing operations of the United Church of Canada. The organization had already transitioned much of their operations to Microsoft’s Cloud with Office 365, SharePoint, and Dynamics 365 for Sales. The remaining legacy piece of the puzzle was Dynamics NAV 2013 – operating on-premises. Following a competitive proposal process to select a new Microsoft implementation partner, the non-profit engaged with 360 Visibility, a Tier 1 Gold competency level Microsoft Partner in Canada to upgrade Dynamics NAV 2013 to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the Cloud.
The upgraded solution with comprehensive fund accounting functionality checked off every item on the United Church of Canada’s solution requirements list:
- A cloud-based system
- Comprehensive fund accounting & allocations
- Built-in reporting
- Reduced dependency on customizations
- Modern Integration Platform
As a long-time Microsoft Dynamics NAV customer, the non-profit greatly appreciated the familiar yet more intuitive user interface of Dynamics 365 Business Central. 360 Visibility’s extensive expertise implementing Dynamics 365 Business Central with fund accounting for non-profits provided the United Church of Canada precisely what they needed in a trusted advisor and Microsoft Partner.
Simplifying Processes for an Uncomplicated Future
The United Church of Canada financial team supplies reporting to both internal and external groups. Internally, budgets are prepared and circulated with strict accounting standards upheld. Externally, government audits and compliance necessitate precise information. The Fundamentals for Dynamics 365 Business Central functionality creates simplified workflows and definitions for non-profit-specific fund accounting, allocations, account schedules, and budget controls. Upgrading to Business Central, the United Church of Canada could free up several servers to realize immediate cost savings. The transition eliminated legacy integrations and customizations, reducing complexity for future upgrades and reliance on an external partner for integration maintenance. Finance and IT staff are free to concentrate on their tasks without performing manual calculations and troubleshooting integration issues. “With stringent budgets, these changes allowed us much-needed breathing room to allocate funds to serve our mission better,” explains Harry Li.
360 Visibility
