Case Study: Brent Taylor, CFO, The Well Community Church

The Challenge

Based out of Fresno, California, The Well Community Church is a multisite church. Brent Taylor, the organization’s CFO, makes sure the finances run smoothly so The Well can focus on helping people connect to God and to each other in every neighborhood. Brent Taylor was getting tired of using accounting software that involved numerous workarounds. “We weren’t using true fund accounting software and we had to do extra work to make it work like ‘fund’ accounting software,” he said. “We could do it, except that it involved a number of month-end journal entries and calculations to make it function.”

Brent had been getting by using QuickBooks® for a number of years. “QuickBooks worked for us when we had just a few funds, but if we were going to expand the number of funds and experience a great degree of complexity, we knew we couldn’t manage that in the QuickBooks Desktop environment,” he said. “There was also less clarity in QuickBooks for the financial reporting, and since it wasn’t designed as a true fund accounting software, it didn’t allow for easy changes and flexibility to the structure and reporting processes.”

If Brent was going to find new software though, he needed a platform that could handle the multisite church—a place that employed 82 people and had an annual budget of $6.1 million.

The Solution

Brent’s first concerns were that the budgeting structure and features available when he started in Aplos did not allow for the reduction in the size of The Well’s chart of accounts. “So we built our account list and budgeting structure within this framework,” he said. “However, Aplos provided me with additional options they offer that allow for a simplified structure (account list with fewer accounts).”

Alex Acree worked with Brent and The Well in the setup process with Aplos. “He helped us practically walk through the steps of implementing Aplos to accomplish our goals for the accounting structure and financial reporting,” Brent said. “He spent time going through the key functions and features in the software, and provided support by phone and email as issues arose throughout the transition and learning process. He provided doable solutions and answers to our questions to help us make Aplos ‘ours.'”

The Results

Brent’s favorite feature is a tie between the income allocation tool and the reporting functions. First, the income allocation tool saves The Well time and is very easy to use for allocating to funds. “We use it regularly, which prevents us from having to do a series of month-end closing journal entries. It also accomplishes our fund allocation goals, as we do monthly allocations of funds to our general budget, missions budget, and development budget.”

The reporting tools are great too. “Because Aplos is a true fund accounting software, it provides me clarity, along with allowing for ‘dashboard-like’ features for users,” he said. “The reporting is also easy to prepare and clear for readers, like our leadership team and elders, to follow and understand. I regularly use the reports that allow me to define which accounts can be viewed by each user. This allows us to create a user-specific report, providing them with current information. This has really allowed for a lot of self-service by those using the financial reports to monitor their budgets and view account detail when they need it.”

The time savings really carry over to cost savings in the area of staffing. “Aplos’ processes and reporting are straightforward without a lot of workarounds, so our staff can remain efficient as a finance staff team. The true fund accounting structure saves time on report creation as the reporting structure is clear and intuitive.”

The Well’s finance department has experienced time savings in a number of other areas. “The ‘dashboard’ reports that people can access have reduced the number of information requests because people have ‘self-service’ access to the information,” Brent said. “We have also experienced time savings related to month-end closing using the allocation tool. Providing analytical information is also much more efficient because we are able to report, track, and budget by fund. This allows for quick access to clear reports and allows us to provide efficient answers to analytical financial questions.”

Brent says Aplos’ ongoing support has been timely and effective. “It’s clear that they were listening to their customers because some of the feature recommendations I offered early on when we started using Aplos later showed up in product updates and improvements,” he explained.

Finally, Brent notes, “As our church grows, I can see the software continuing to grow with us without a problem.”

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