National Society of Black Engineers
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) was founded initially by a group of engineering students at Purdue University, and they held the organization’s first annual meeting with 48 students from 32 schools in 1975. Today NSBE supports over 790 chapters and more 20,000 active members in the United States and internationally. Additionally, NSBE engages college students and professionals in engineering and technology and fosters growth and opportunities through STEM education initiatives for K-12 students.
“With Fonteva Payments, it’s made it so much easier. Now since the systems talk to each other, that part of the reconciliation is done.”
Felicia Carter, Staff Accountant, National Society of Black Engineers
The Challenge
NSBE had previously used another payment processor. A number of factors played into their desire to identify and implement a new solution. First, NSBE wanted a system that would allow staff to better collaborate with both co-workers and partners. Second, credit cards would be declined, and team members wouldn’t know the reasons why. Card errors and the director level not being able to have direct visibility into the reporting structure of the system were two big sources of frustration. In the past granting access and the creation of reports would rely on one NSBE employee. A primary goal was to give visibility to executives and team members. Additionally, because the merchant services system was not importing directly into Fonteva, reconciliations between deposits and cash flow would take as much as three days. Hours could be required to investigate a single deposit.
The Solution
Felcia Carter, NSBE Staff Accountant stated, “With Fonteva Payments, it’s made it so much easier. They (team members) can actually click on the message that pops up and see what’s wrong. They can do their own research regarding payments or regarding refunds or anything of that nature relating to a customer inquiry on their receipt.”
Felicia continued, “Now we all have access to Fonteva Payments. They can see the disputes. They can see the chargebacks. They can see the refunds. They can see the merchant service fees and everything that’s associated with that particular payment or with the payouts.”
With all data being in Fonteva, the reconciliation process has now gone from taking three full days to just a day or potentially to a matter of hours. Felicia provided additional insights on saving time because of Fonteva Payments: “The more I look at the reports, review the reports, become more familiar with the reports- instead of it taking a full day of review- my goal is for it to maybe take three hours or four hours: just to review it, spot check it, and import it.”
Felicia’s whole approach to the process has changed, adding: “With Fonteva Payments, it’s opening me up to… reconcile different ways. I don’t necessarily have to reconcile the way I was reconciling with [the previous system]. I can now input my deposits directly and then input my revenue directly… so that’s amazing to me! Now since the systems talk to each other, that part of the reconciliation is done.”
“Fonteva being built upon Salesforce already has a reputation of high caliber there… it eases my mind.”
Ralph Perez, IT, National Society of Black Engineers
Another part of what had been a multi-step process has been greatly simplified as well. Felicia explained further, “Now because of the way it works in Fonteva Payments, those payments are already grouped for me in a payout. My goal is… now that I have this new process that I’m doing with cash against revenue that I’ll be a lot more comfortable with just exporting both reports and just importing with no question.”
Ralph Perez from NSBE’s IT team referred to the implementation as being “seamless, just minimal on the IT side. It’s been great.” With regard to security being a top priority, Ralph added, “Fonteva being built upon Salesforce already has a reputation of high caliber there… it eases my mind.”
Felicia also spoke to the implementation process for Fonteva Payments: “For me the implementation was fairly easy. We were able to implement it on time. From the time of the initial meeting to implementation, it was about a month due to testing and people’s schedules. It was a very quick turnaround. I’ve been in some transitions that took at least six months.”
When asked about her favorite features and functionality in Fonteva Payments, Felicia responded, “Everything is my favorite. But I really like how I can go within the actual payment, the charge. So, I can click on the charge and see the payment; and click on the sales order and be right inside the sales order and see everything that happens.”