Search for Common Ground
Nonprofit Agency Centralizes Accounting, Frees Resources for Peacemaking
Search for Common Ground is a nonprofit organization focused on bringing cooperative solutions to areas of conflict. The organization has 400 employees and is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Brussels, Belgium. To manage finances and multicurrency cash flow from 50 cash accounts to field offices, the organization relied on different systems and countless spreadsheets. As a result, the company lacked insight into spending. To streamline accounting, the organization deployed Microsoft Dynamics™ GP. To make the solution accessible worldwide, the organization uses Business Portal for Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. With these solutions in place, the organization has improved collaboration, increased accountability, and continued its mission of peace with confidence.
Business Needs
Since 1982, Search for Common Ground has worked with partners across the world to find culturally appropriate means to address conflict. “Our mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict—away from adversarial approaches, towards cooperative solutions,” says Sandra Melone, Executive Vice President of Search for Common Ground. “We’re peacebuilders.”
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Brussels, Belgium, this nonprofit organization has expanded to over 400 employees and 18 field offices across the globe. Search for Common Ground relies on charitable donors and worldwide governmental support to sustain its peacebuilding efforts, which include television campaigns, radio campaigns, public forums, and discussion panels.
As an organization that spans the globe and transcends cultural differences, Search for Common Ground struggled with inconsistent business practices that hindered collaboration between offices and limited visibility into financials. Between Washington, D.C., and Brussels, the organization lacked a unified chart of accounts, using different accounting systems and countless spreadsheets to manage multicurrency cash flow from 50 cash accounts to 18 field offices.
As a result, the organization faced frequent audits and spent more time preparing reports for auditors. Management concluded that the organization needed to standardize accounting policies and procedures to redeploy resources to what mattered most—peacebuilding. Says Jack Deeds, Chief Financial Officer of Search for Common Ground, “It took up to four months to close the financial books. Because we lacked insight into remaining balances on grants during this time, grants that had closed or run out of funds could continue to spend.”
The very nature of peacebuilding poses challenges as well. War and postwar zones often lack a reliable Internet connection, let alone a bank, yet Search for Common Ground still needed a way to bring field data from precarious regions into a centralized system. “To continue our peacemaking efforts, we needed a consolidated financial system that could manage our Washington, D.C., and Brussels headquarters, and report in multicurrency,” says Deeds. “We also needed to have a unified chart of accounts that would give us managed reporting for our global enterprise, including all field offices.”
Solution
Deeds found that Microsoft Dynamics™ GP provides both core accounting and advanced reporting functionality. The solution also promotes ease of use, enabling Search for Common Ground staff to work in familiar applications—such as Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007. In addition, the flexible architecture of Microsoft Dynamics GP would help the organization tailor the solution to meet changing business requirements.
Establishing Global Accounting
To simplify accounting and eliminate the need for account reconciliation, Search for Common Ground chose to run all accounts through General Ledger in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Search for Common Ground organized the general ledger into five segments, through which it can run all financial reports and meet the Brussels office’s need for a planned, compatible chart of accounts.
Extending to Field Offices
For global reporting, Search for Common Ground deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. This enables staff in field offices with intermittent connectivity to create financial reports while working offline in Excel 2007. These reports are then submitted to accounting staff through Business Portal in Microsoft Dynamics GP when a connection is established.
When field staff submits reports, a custom application based on Microsoft ASP.NET provides accountants with alerts regarding account changes. Accountants can then approve the report and post it to the general ledger. To ensure information consistency, logic in the application rejects reports that contain errors until the problems are rectified. The organization also uses custom applications for posting timesheets and budget information through Business Portal in Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Search for Common Ground also uses SharePoint Server 2007 to manage documents. The organization posts all its latest policies, procedures, and documents online, including proposals, contracts, amendments, leases, and corporate documents. Because access to documents in SharePoint Server 2007 is based on an employee’s role, documents remain secure.
Benefits
By establishing a consistent set of business practices and enabling the exchange of information between headquarters and the field, Search for Common Ground can more effectively strategize its mission to transform the way the world deals with conflict. Says Deeds, “Microsoft Dynamics GP and SharePoint Server 2007 help us bring teams together, collaborate, and create a worldwide ecosystem that enables our staff to get on the same page with a common set of policies and procedures.”
Drive Relationships with Donors and Staff
With centralized accounting records, the organization has significantly reduced the time it takes to close the books from four months to just one month. In addition, the sharing of accurate financial data from field offices has kept account information up-to-date and reduced the chance of grant overspending. Now, employees get near-real-time financial status of grants, which aids in the process of selecting the correct grant and budget code in Microsoft Dynamics GP. Says Deeds, “Our donors are happier because they’re getting more timely and accurate reports. And people in the field are happier, too, because they don’t have to worry about spending an exhausted grant.”
Increase Accountability
Audits are still common, but Search for Common Ground has confidence in the consistency of account data. Says Deeds, “Recently, our auditors were reviewing our implementation and challenging our records. In other systems, job costing and project accounting don’t always agree with the general ledger, so our auditors questioned if this would be an issue with our new solution. But I sat down with them for 15 minutes, showed them how all financial statements and job cost reports are coming from the general ledger, and they got it. It’s nearly impossible for there to be any difference between job costing and the general ledger.”
Promote Collaboration, Peace
With Microsoft Dynamics GP and SharePoint Server 2007, Search for Common Ground continues to work internally and with others to bring cooperation to areas of conflict. Says Deeds, “By creating peace of mind within our organization for donors, government organizations, employees, and partners, Microsoft technology enables us to continue the mission of world peace.”