Pike County Public Library
Pike County Public Library in Petersburg, Indiana serves approximately 13,000 residents. The library system includes two physical branches along with an online branch, and is led by Director, Stephanie Rawlins, who received the ‘Innovative Librarians Award’ in 2019.
To Stephanie and her team of 15 staff members, the library is a community center— providing services like health initiatives, voter registration support, test proctoring, as well as child, teen, and adult programming. Adult programs include digital literacy training, which is essential for a county that feels the affects of the digital divide.
“Our data was not converted correctly when we initially implemented FE NXT, so our balance sheets weren’t balancing. After spending a year in our system and it still not working, I didn’t think the solution could ever be fixed. My account executive at Blackbaud finally recommended that I contact NPact. Now my balance sheet balances! The data is accurate, and I now understand how FE works and I’m better equipped to fix errors. Our NPact consultant increased my confidence and ability to use Financial Edge to its intended capability. I think all levels of the bookkeeping team could benefit from NPact’s expertise.”
Stephanie Rawlins
Director, Pike County Public Library
General Ledger
When Pike County Public Library transitioned to Blackbaud’s Financial Edge NXT in January 2020, their general ledger wasn’t balancing, and it wasn’t clear why. That issue caused immense stress and concerns. Eventually, an account executive at Blackbaud recommended that the library contact NPact to help resolve the problem. Libraries have unique accounting needs; regulations are stringent because much of their funding comes from taxpayer dollars. When the Pike County Public Library was ready to upgrade to a fund accounting software solution, Financial Edge NXT was on the Indiana State Board of Accounts’ approved vendors. They liked that the software was cloud-based, however the transition to the cloud wasn’t seamless and posed unique challenges for the library.
“Many of our residents do not own computers, smart phones, tablets, or have an email address. They rely on the library to help them with technology or provide the technology services they need. We try to serve people the best we can. I want people to say ‘What don’t they do at the library?’”
Stephanie Rawlins
Director, Pike County Public Library
Helping Your Organization
The NPact consultant began by listening to the challenges that Stephanie was having and acquainting himself with library accounting regulations, which are different from a typical non-profit organization. Once he fully understood the issues, he worked with Stephanie to go back to the very beginning of the ledger, then showed her solutions for the fixes that were needed. Together, they balanced the ledger, and ultimately fixed the entire workflow—giving Stephanie the training and confidence she needed to troubleshoot errors moving forward.
The consultant, like all NPact consultants, has advanced accounting experience, and gave Stephanie some additional ideas to think about as the library approached its end-of-the-year deadline to submit numbers to the Indiana State Board of Accounts. Knowing that the numbers were accurate took the pressure off of Stephanie for the year-end deliverable, as well as an upcoming four-year audit. The positive experience moved Stephanie to extend the library's contract with NPact to continue to collaborate and train members of her staff.
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