KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Eastman Credit Union was having growing painswhen it came to the bookkeeping and reporting side of the businessat Tennessee's largest credit union. The $1.3 billion credit unionhas 10 branches serving members in Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas,South Carolina and Texas and needed to expand the accounting systemit was running from XP Systems, the credit union's core processor."We had greater demands than the system could accommodate, and wewere anticipating further growth. We needed a solution that couldgrow with us," says Patricia Huffman, controller for the61,000-member CU based in Kingsport. So a task force of Eastman andXP Systems staffers chose the Epicor for Financial Solutionspackage after narrowing the choice to it and Microsoft accountingsoftware subsidiary Great Plains. "We now have an integratedaccounting system that includes general ledger, accounts payable,financial reporting and fixed assets," Huffman says. Perhaps themost critical challenge to the deployment, Huffman says, wasintegrating the Epicor software with the CU's core XP Systemsplatform. Now each day, the core system generates aclose-of-business report file of member activity, which is thenread by the integrated XP Systems-Epicor system and posted directlyinto Epicor's general ledger module. Making sure that would happenwas the central focus of the eight-person accounting team, andaccompanying IT staffer, who worked with Epicor representativeson-site for the week of the conversion. Huffman says, "Because ofour extensive preparation for the conversion, we left the office ata reasonable time on the day of the conversion with the confidencewe had succeeded." New levels of productivity are being seenprimarily in the area of financial reporting, Huffman says. "Now wecan easily generate a report that in the past we worked hard tocreate every month," she says. The credit union also is benefitingfrom the ability to use its funds longer, since the growing list ofcorporate disbursements now are handled on a two-week schedule ofcheck production, says Eastman accountant Janet Barnes. An EFTmodule recently added to the system also is expected to addadditional productivity enhancements. Reports also can be posted onintranets through an integrated module. As for ROI, the CU hasspent about $136,000 so far, not counting staff time, Huffman says."The return on this investment is mostly intangible and it's reallytoo early to see all of the results from this investment," shesays. "In many ways, the new system continues to evolve as webetter utilize the functionality of it." Epicor, based in Irvine,Calif., currently serves about 30 credit unions - includingEastman, Affinity FCU and Truliant FCU - and 700 other financialservices firms among its more than 15,000 customers worldwideacross a wide range of industries. In the credit union space, itsfocus is its Epicor for Financial Services solution, which itmarkets as seamlessly integrated with XP2, the newest core systemfrom XP Systems. The heart of the system is a cross-platformdata-import manager that allows integration with front, middle andback-office applications on data sources such as SQL, XML and Webservices, says James Norwood, Epicor Enterprise's Group seniordirector of product marketing. The company also has developed acredit union-specific implementation methodology, he says. "Many ofEpicor's credit union customers have seen the need to migrate fromsimple, stand-alone accounting applications to a single financialand production environment," Norwood says. Credit unions have veryspecific and very demanding reporting requirements," he says. "Theyalso are very cost sensitive and are looking for maximum returnfrom minimal investment." -

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