We are back with our ongoing series that provides information on the WCD’s SVA project.

​​​​​​​If you were at the Spring Town Hall, you might remember being told about us working with SVA consulting to modernize some of our systems and processes, which you can read more about here.

With the opening of the Baird Center expansion and the large increase in the number of events we are hosting, it has become more important than ever to make sure we are working as efficiently as possible. However, we’ve learned that some of the old ways we were doing things and the tools we were using weren’t helping us do that. So, to stay competitive and maximize this amazing opportunity we have to make an even greater impact for Milwaukee, it is time for an update.

So, is everything about to change? Not exactly — but some things will be different.

One of the biggest changes to our operations will happen with WCD’s finance team.

After decades utilizing a long-outdated software, WCD is in the process of integrating a new finance software system called Acumatica.

What exactly is Acumatica, and how will help WCD as it continues to grow and look to the future? We sat down with Accounting Manager David Ray to share how it will make things more efficient for the finance team and every department within the WCD.

David Ray: The current product we’re using is Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains, which I’m pretty sure came out before any of our current employees started working here. The earliest records I see in this software date back to the nineties, probably when the Wisconsin Center District was first established.

Not only is it old, but there are a couple of other reasons we are moving on from Great Plains. One, the software developer is phasing it out. Two, it’s so old that the developer isn’t maintaining the software anymore. Basically, we are at a point where we have no choice but to get rid of Great Plains. Whether it’s Acumatica or something else, the writing is on the wall.

David Ray: Acumatica is the most current technology that deals with today’s work environment. It’s a cloud-based ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning System, used at a lot of companies our size. It provides a user-friendly interface and it’s very scalable and flexible.  

David Ray: The vice presidents are dying to have real-time information about the current state of the budget. Right now, we do all of our budgeting outside of Great Plains using a spreadsheet. That requires Kyle Graham and me to do a ton of labor-intensive work just to give information that the VPs need in order to make critical financial decisions that impact their departments. This will help everyone, from our team to the non-financial users, to receive the information in a timelier manner to make smart decisions that impact their business and their staff. 

David Ray: For those who place orders, you’ll now be able to do it and track it easily in the system itself. For purchasing, we’ll be able to handle those requests in the software instead of having to do things outside of the software, which should, hopefully, make things easier and more efficient. It’s going to make us less reliant on communicating via email for approvals and requests. And, it’s going to remove the amount of work we have to do it by hand on a spreadsheet.

From a planning and budgeting standpoint, we track revenues and expenses on an event-by-event basis. How’s the Wire Show or the Wave doing from a financial standpoint? We can do profit-loss statements on all events in all buildings, then us that info to make to informed, critical decisions about what we want to pursue down the road. 

David Ray: Yes. We are working with consultants from Acumatica and Momentus to ensure that the financial data that we’re storing in Momentus can be relayed to Acumatica without additional work on our end. This is going to be a huge time-saver. 

David Ray: I could see, at some point, that could be integrated with Acumatica. But it’s baby steps right now. The key thing we wanted to tackle first was Momentus and Acumatica. Then we’ll see how we can expand it to other areas.  

David Ray: We still need to do the work. If anything, our finance team probably continues to grow. So, no, it’s not replacing anybody. It’s just enabling us to work more efficiently and instead of constantly working in the moment and playing catch up all the time, we can do some forward thinking and be more proactive in our planning. It’s not like we haven’t been doing any of that. We just haven’t had a ton of bandwidth to do that. 

David Ray: Right now, the finance team is going through many hours of training. Switching from one system to another is a dauting task. But the goal is to get us through the next 20 years or so, which is the reason we’re taking these somewhat painful, necessary steps.  Right now, we are hoping to have this fully running by the end of the year when we start our annual audit.  

Yes. In an effort to educate and inform staff, the Marketing and Communications team will be creating a monthly series of stories about the SVA project. These will include details about the new software and systems, impacts these will have on our business and operations, look further into why these changes are being made and most importantly, how this project is going to affect you.