Bethel University majors in budgeting and reporting
Key results snapshot
Cut budgeting time in half, from 90 hours per week to 45, during peak budgeting season.
Built an automated fund report with university’s fund and balance at the end of each month.
Improved board reporting package to establish greater trust in reporting accuracy.
Who is Bethel University?
Bethel University has been a leader and model in Christian higher education since 1871. For generations, their fusion of evangelical faith with top-ranked academics has transformed people, preparing them for unique callings in the kingdom of God. Bethel offers undergraduate, degree completion, graduate, and seminary programs in Minnesota and online.
Business challenges
Bethel faced declining enrollment and challenging economic conditions. With Excel as their primary budgeting and reporting tool, Bethel struggled with data visibility and accuracy. It was difficult to keep their models updated and use historical data to inform the current year’s budget. In addition to this, their manual processes didn’t always leave enough time to include department managers in the decision-making process.
Bethel also used pivot tables in Excel to report on their results, a time-consuming and tedious process for the finance team. The Director of Financial Planning and Budgeting could only create reports when time permitted, which meant access to data insights was manual, sporadic, and delayed.
To address these challenges, the leadership team knew they needed to automate their budgeting processes and provide consistent and timely reporting to give visibility into the institution’s performance.
Applications deployed
Financial Planning and Analysis
We were able to put together a report in Prophix that we have scheduled to run on a monthly basis. That report has been really transformative for so many people because they can now have insight into something that was really veiled or hidden before. With Prophix, I can get the right information to the right people so they can act.
Director of Financial Planning and Budgeting, Bethel University
Why Prophix
Bethel went through a detailed evaluation and reviewed nine different platforms. The Director of Financial Planning and Budgeting had used Prophix in a previous role and was confident that the platform could meet their requirements.
The leadership team determined that Prophix would yield the best time-to-value in challenging economic conditions. Bethel urgently needed to address their finance challenges and Prophix provided the quickest path to success. Not only did Prophix have a short implementation cycle, but Bethel realized they could immediately improve their speed, agility, and data accuracy.
Key results
Now, Bethel’s department heads are more active participants in the budgeting cycle. This new approach to budgeting allows them to see the history of the department and use the data as a guide for creating next year’s budget. This institutional collaboration increases visibility into the decision-making behind the numbers.
With Prophix, Bethel University was able to:
Cut budgeting time in half, from 90 hours per week to 45, during peak budgeting season.
Gain better visibility into their data and take an incremental approach to budgeting that involves rolling over funds from year-to-year.
Quickly redirect unused funds and keep track of capital, even if department heads change.
Build an automated fund report with the university’s fund and balance at the end of each month.
Empower department heads and budget owners to make better programming decisions and recommendations on allocating surplus funds.
Improve their board reporting and establish greater trust in the accuracy of their reporting, increasing transparency and accountability.
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