ARCATA, Calif. -
"When we first bought the system, I thought it was way too sophisticated," Goodwyn said. "We climbed a huge learning curve to get into the system. But that investment of time paid off later on-the more we learn the system the more we learn about producing sophisticated analyses, which is where regulators are headed anyway."
Goodwyn said the system has saved him enough time that he has been able to operate without a full-time staff member who left last year.
Northern Redwood is among the more than 100 credit unions that have signed on for the Wisdom Financial Management Suite this year alone, bringing the total CU-user base to 600, according to Craig Strumpfer, product manager for Wisdom, which is offered by Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv.
The recent affinity for Wisdom goes beyond a desire for refined financial analysis. Wisdom was extended early last year to Fiserv's entire flock of seven credit union units. The Windows-based suite includes four modules-accounting, asset and liability management (ALM), investment portfolio management, and the 5300 Call Report Assistant-that pull data from Fiserv core systems using "a detailed but simple interface," Strumpfer said.
"Each month, Wisdom gives me the net return; return on each asset type and liability type; dividends we're paying; and costing a little more accurately than we were able to do before," Goodwyn said. Goodwyn had been in the habit of using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and a time-intensive series of manual calculations to analyze loan turnover, create budgets and business plans and complete reports that, in the end, lacked detail and weren't quite accurate.
"Wisdom saved me a lot of time because it pulls in core data that is hard to access and assemble," he said. "It helps produce the data regulators are pounding on us to see, regardless of our size."
A rudimentary examination of loan turnover used to take Goodwyn about 15 minutes per month. Now, Wisdom instantly imports data, allowing Goodwyn to use a task wizard to see how quickly loans are turning over month-by-month or annually.
"Before, I could never get that kind of detail," Goodwyn said.
The details come in handy when it's time to make an impression on the board of directors, he continued.
Automatic financial reports, such as the Spread Analysis, compare income, expenses and savings and loan balances against the budget.
"At any given month, you can see what percentage you're off and where," Goodwyn said. "Our old budgets only compared income and expenses. You could take a look and see if you were off, but it wasn't quickly apparent why."
The board also likes the looks of the detailed budgets Goodwyn can create in Wisdom.
"We can take a nine-month budget history and use it as a starting point for the next year," he said. "A modeling tool in the ALM program will also set up what-if scenarios. We can overwrite the model with current knowledge so that our model becomes more and more accurate."
Instead of predicting share growth per year in Excel, the CU can now forecast share growth month by month for the year, added Goodwyn. Northern Redwood mocked up a budget in three hours this year instead of the two days it used to take, he said.
The $30-million Central Keystone FCU in Sunbury, Penn., is also able to take a clearer look at the future using Wisdom, according to Kris Kauffman, CEO.
"By pulling all the data together from our host loans and shares, general ledger package and investments into a single place, Wisdom lets us look at our credit union's complete financial performance," Kauffman said. "From there we can forecast into the future and do rate shocks and net income simulations."
Kauffman was recognized with a Credit Union Journal Best Practices Award this month for using Wisdom to reduce 5300 Call Report preparation time to 30 minutes, down from more than four hours.
Goodwyn has cut in half the amount of time he spends completing 5300 Call Reports.
"Before, we would go through the Call Report page by page, entering all the data totally manually," he explained. The process now is "almost entirely automatic."
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For Info On The Story:
* www. northernredwoodfcu.org
* www.ckfcu.org
* www.fiserv.com
