Canadian Baptist Ministries Unites Its Systems and Its Staff

How the Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) uses Sparkrock to reduce the time it takes to close their books by 75%.

The Sparkrock solution works really well because it’s fully integrated right from revenue back into the back end. As soon as you input a piece of information or know the piece of information is live, the data flows seamlessly across the system and you can see exactly where you stand in regards to financials and revenue. The ability to access this information quickly, trust the integrity of our data, and close our books in a timely manner – we’re now closing our books in 10 days as opposed to 4-6 weeks – is a really great change.

Rob Jackett
Director of Administration
Canadian Baptist Ministries

About CBM

Canadian Baptist Ministries is a global mission organization focused on creating lasting change through compassionate action and community partnership. With over 140 years of experience, they work alongside local churches around the world to support initiatives that promote hope, healing, and reconciliation. By integrating practical support with meaningful, faith-based connection, they help build sustainable ministries that strengthen communities and expand long-term impact. 

The Challenge:
Scattered Systems

Previous to implementing their Sparkrock solution, Canadian Baptist Ministries struggled with providing transparency and accountability from their legacy DOS-based system, Accpac. The software was too cumbersome to allow them to optimize fund and grant management, provide budgetary control, or manage complex reporting requirements. Because of these technology problems, manual processes were slowing down their efficiency.

Their legacy solution did not integrate well with their other management software, with specific issues arising between their financial and donor management systems. There was a lot of manual intervention required to manage grant and funding-related processes, and it was taking them long periods of time to close the books.

Not only was CBM’s old system non-integrated, but it was also partially paper-based and involved Excel spreadsheets and the need to import and export large amounts of data from disparate systems.

Expenses were coming in from the field piecemeal, and then they would have to manually tie everything together in their systems. Of course, because this process was paper-based and not automated, it took a lot of extra time and manual effort to be able to match their expenses and revenues.

Their close dates took anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks beyond receiving the financial information into their organization, and they quickly grew to realize that a world-class organization could not accept this delay as a standard any longer.

With statutory pressures growing, they realized they needed to be able to understand their revenue streams and budgets in real-time if they wanted to have the maximum impact on their mission and the lives of the people they serve, and this triggered them to begin to look for a system that was better-tailored towards their specific needs as a nonprofit.

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The Solution: One
Platform, Complete Clarity

Now, CBM has their Sparkrock Finance Management system implemented and stable.

Their Director of Administration noted that even just the level of discussion needed to implement the solution brought CBM closer together.

These discussions prompted the organization’s different departments to talk more and better coordinate internal processes and actions. This has led to a more involved team approach to the overall management of CBM. 

If one department makes a mistake, another department can catch it thanks to built-in checks and better workflows. This increases data integrity and reduces the inaccuracies they used to struggle with, leaving them with more time and energy to fulfill their mission and serve their community.

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The Outcome: Better
Information At Their Fingertips

One of the largest advantages of switching to Sparkrock’s Finance and Accounting solution is that CBM can now easily access up-to-the-minute financial information.

The project management module implemented by Sparkrock is also very important to CBM’s ministry. All of the history of the project revenue that’s coded within the system is there. There’s a project card that details all of the information regarding the project in terms of the project number, the description of the project, who the beneficiaries of the project are, who the leads are on the project (both from an internal and an external partner perspective), descriptions of what the activities are, and any reporting that comes back.

All of this documentation is able to be easily attached within the module, so anyone who has access to the system—including staff members and project contributors from all over the world—can go in and get the details of the project. This feature is critical to their successful program delivery at the management level, the project level, and the program level.

Ultimately, the better and easier the administrative team can do their work, the less time field workers have to spend doing admin or paperwork, worrying about staff getting paid, or questioning the integrity of their data. This gives them more time and resources to spend on their programs and provides better services and support to the people they serve around the world.

One of the things we’re able to do now that we couldn't before is that we’re able to get to important data. If it wasn't there, then it was in streams of paper—the report would be 100 pages long. Now we’re able to data mine in a much more effective and efficient manner, so we’ve reduced our cost of administration and reduced our cost of analysis. We’re quicker and can make smarter and more timely decisions.
Rob Jackett
Director of Administration
Canadian Baptist Ministries

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