The Challenge

Elevation Church, a large multi-site organization, faced significant challenges in managing its bottom-up budgeting process, which required input from 50–70 budget owners annually. Many of these team members were not financially trained, and the lack of usability and flexibility in their previous tool made the process challenging and time-consuming.

As the Budgeting and Reporting Lead, Brandon Hibbard was responsible for addressing the key challenges of the budgeting process:

• Streamlining collaboration with a large team of budget owners, which often involved time-consuming back-and-forth communication.

• Providing non-financial users with a system that was intuitive and easy to use, enabling them to engage effectively with financial data.

• Overcoming the delays and complexities caused by manual processes and inefficiencies in data management.

Brandon needed a solution that could simplify workflows, improve collaboration, and make the budgeting process more efficient for all stakeholders:

We needed a product that was not only efficient and powerful for the finance department but also user-friendly and easy to learn for non-financially trained budget owners.

The Solution

Elevation Church chose Abacum to transform its budgeting and reporting processes. Abacum’s platform offered the flexibility and ease of use needed to engage both financial and non-financial stakeholders effectively.

Key features implemented included:

• Collaborative Spaces: Enabled clear communication of top-down guidance, feedback, and budget proposals in one location.

• Real-Time Integration: Synced seamlessly with the church’s general ledger software, ensuring that variance analyses and reports were always up to date.

• Intuitive Status Tracking: Simplified the review and approval process for both the finance team and leadership.

The platform also allowed for a combination of manual input tables, freeform text fields, and visual tools like charts and graphs, making it easier to gather, review, and present budget proposals.

The Impact

Abacum delivered immediate improvements for Elevation Church, including:

1. A Faster Budgeting Cycle:

   The church completed its budgeting process earlier than ever before, saving significant time for both budget owners and the finance team.

2. Increased Engagement Across Stakeholders:

   Budget owners, many without financial training, found the platform easy to use, leading to better collaboration and engagement with financial data.

3. Cost Savings:

   By transitioning from its previous platform to Abacum, Elevation Church achieved substantial subscription savings while gaining a more robust and efficient FP&A tool.

The intuitive design and streamlined workflows not only saved time but also empowered the church to focus on strategic decision-making rather than administrative tasks.

Conclusion

By adopting Abacum, Elevation Church has redefined its budgeting and reporting processes. The platform’s user-friendly interface and robust capabilities have bridged the gap between financial professionals and non-financial stakeholders, fostering collaboration and improving decision-making across the organization.

As the church looks ahead, its focus will be on leveraging Abacum’s powerful reporting features to enhance data accessibility and transparency further. This, in turn, will support even greater efficiency in future budgeting cycles.

Brandon’s advice to others considering Abacum: "Looking back at it now, it’s easy to say how much better our processes would have been over the past few years had we moved to Abacum sooner. I would only have the highest recommendations."