How UCCU Gained Efficiency and Reduced Costs with Automated Reconciliation

Can you describe your reconciliation process before you implemented Frontier?

Justin Smith, CFO of UCCU talks about about how his controllership strategies and Frontier by Trintech helped the credit union reduce costs, tighten internal controls, increase efficiency, and improve accuracy.

“When I joined UCCU in 2018, I was struck by the sheer volume of manual information used in collecting data for monthly reconciliation. It required a significant amount of effort to compile and monitor transactions for accuracy. In addition to being time consuming, the results were often unclear and required specialized knowledge from someone with a long history of specific accounts. Research of some reconciling items took such a long time that the window was missed and we could not collect or recover. The transaction could not be carried on our balance sheet, and we had to write it off during month end close. In other words, it was inefficient and costly.”

What were you looking for in an automated reconciliation and certification solution?

“There were many things, yet my priorities were cost and time savings, accuracy and insight. It was time to automate tasks that we intuitively felt could be shifted from a human brain to a computer. We believed this could free up associates to take on challenges that required their unique skillset and experience. We also understood that automation in general would yield way more insight into every account, allowing us to ask real-time questions to solve the problems. Having everything stored in one place would better equip anyone who needed visibility into what was going on.”

The amount of insight gained through Frontier has helped us to find the holes, enabling cost reduction, process improvement, and accuracy in financial reporting.”

What benefits have you experienced by implementing Frontier?

“One of the most complicated was our Federal Reserve account. Before the transition, an associate had to pull the file every single day into Excel and manually match the transactions based on batches. Determining the source of errors could take up to six hours a day. Once automated, the data was matched clearly and quickly, revealing only those issues that required attention. That account reconciliation now takes one person around 30 minutes to complete. The Fed reconciliation went from 100 discrepancies aged up to six months to less than five aged less than one month.

“Some accounts are complicated with comprehensive reporting. We had to use Monarch to extract data to balance transactions. The Frontier reconciler accesses the data automatically, thus saving money by replacing the need for multiple software programs and license fees.

“We’ve continually added new accounts and automation and currently have 104 accounts that have some sort of automation through our reconciliation side. We’ve also expanded our services, including interactive teller machines and Zelle. And as part of those implementations, we created and automated a Frontier reconciliation. We spend very little time monitoring the Zelle® transactions, even though we’ve now had millions of transactions go through.”

They loved what it could do right out of the gate. The two accountants I work closest with are eager to learn more about what Frontier can do. Frontier helps us add the true value in accounting through research and presenting accurate data. We are working on automating most of our accounts.”

How has automated reconciliation empowered your team?

“If you compare our old processes with the new, I estimate that we have saved a collective 30 staff hours per day. And our month-end close processes used to take up to eight days. That’s been reduced by at least two days—another great time savings. This has resulted in us being able to reduce staff by three FTE positions. As we automate and have turnover, we have reduced the effort just enough that we have not rehired three FTE positions. And that’s all while we grew our assets over 70% in the last three years. Frontier’s flexibility and varied uses also allow our people to spend their time solving the true problems, improving the accuracy of our data and our processes.”

They loved what it could do right out of the gate. The two accountants I work closest with are eager to learn more about what Frontier can do. Frontier helps us add the true value in accounting through research and presenting accurate data. We are working on automating most of our accounts.”

How did automation impact you as a leader and CFO at UCCU?

As a CFO, my favorite result of using Frontier is improved accuracy and confidence in our numbers. The amount of insight gained through Frontier has helped us to find the holes, enabling cost reduction, process improvement, and accuracy in financial reporting. With visibility into every account, I’m able to have a better understanding of our reconciliation process overall. I’m able to ask questions and get answers in real time. I can now have conversations that just weren’t possible before the transition because by the time I got the reports, they were no longer useful because they had been prepared a month before.”

“I am now assured that the general ledger balance reflected in the certification is accurate. Frontier Account Certification pulls data directly from our subledgers. The GL balance is pulled directly and allows at month end each accountant who owns an individual balance to be able to certify that balance is accurate by providing the support as well as the reconciling items. When they submit, each one is reviewed to be sure the data is accurate. The documents that support the data are always attached.

This means that I inherently trust the data that comes to me because I know that the data is pulled directly from the source, and no one needs to manipulate that data. If changes are made, Frontier captures it in real time. As a result, anyone reviewing the data knows they are in the same timeframe. I have much better insight into the data, the processes, and the financial reporting aspect of my job because we use Frontier.”