AM Retail (Part of G-III Apparel Group) operates retail stores for Wilson Leather, G.H. Bass & Co., Calvin Klein Performance, Karl Lagerfeld Paris, and DKNY. Join Charlie Kettering, Finance Director at AM Retail, as he shares his team's vision for modernizing month-end close.  Charlie and his team, over the course of one month, turned a manual reconciliation process into one that is electronic, and in the process, successfully saved two weeks of man hours per quarter.

Kemba Credit Union was established in 1934 to serve employees of the Kroger Company. Today, it has over $1 Billion in assets and offers a plethora of banking, lending, investing, financial planning and insurance solutions to its members. It aims to provide its members with the best that technology has to offer. Join Janet Oiler, Controller at Kemba Credit Union, as she shares her team's exploration into month-end close and reconciliation automation, and how modernizing this process has impacted the way her team approaches month-end activities.

At the end of every month or quarter, credit union finance professionals tackle the close process, or the preparation of the credit union’s financial statements for publication. It requires extensive research and reconciliation on the part of the finance team, and completing these tasks manually can be challenging.

Nancy Wu, head of sales and customer support for SkyStem, says many credit unions experience pain points in their close processes. This is where automation tools can help to streamline the close process, removing inefficiencies and allowing teams to work more effectively together.

For $551 million asset 121 Financial Credit Union in Jacksonville, Florida, implementing automation made the close process easier on the finance team. Chief financial officer Benjamin Munday says this led to smarter ways of working, improved morale, and happier team members.

In this episode of the CUNA News Podcast, sponsored by SkyStem, Wu and Munday share best practices for identifying an automation solution that fits your credit union’s needs, getting employees on board with new tools and processes, and working through potential challenges like the coronavirus pandemic.