A Few Words from a Satisfied Customer

Gerry Webb, Secretary of Esquimalt Lions Club was kind enough to submit a review of MoneyMinder in their August newsletter.
He explains, “All Lions Clubs within our District have a need to account for the monies and resources they control in the process of being Lions. In the past, this has been done primarily using age-old, paper-based, handraulic methods. Many clubs have graduated to using online programs to bring their clubs into the 21^st century. The only problem with these programs is that many are not formulated to accommodate charitable (non—business oriented) organizations. Others are so complex of nature that, once designed, they become intimidating to those who may be called upon to use them. This has been the experience of our Club over the past half-decade and hassled us to explore other avenues to streamline and simplify this task.
There are numerous creative accounting programs available to charitable or non-profit organizations, some of which are cheap and some of which are expensive. Unfortunately, very few satisfy, or are compatible with, the unique requirements of our clubs. When this particular program caught my attention, I delved deeper and spoke to several people in the organization to determine how, exactly, it worked. I finally came into contact with a lady named Cindy Meuchel, a representative based out of northern Washington. She was extremely helpful and informative.
Following two trial periods (they approved a second one for us, one for me and later, one for our incoming Treasurer) our Board approved a one-year trial of the software for the 2015/2016 Lions year. The trial started on 1 July 2015 and ended on 30 June this year. We had many roadblocks, none show-stoppers, and learned a great deal as we worked through the process. Most of the problems were, in retrospect, due to the ignorance of the program or poor decisions on our part. However, due to the versatility of the software, we were able to work through them successfully and have now extended our trial into a second, much wiser, year.
Why are we sharing this? The cost notwithstanding, we are quite excited about our experience with this software and feel it has promise should other Clubs be encountering similar issues with their accounting processes.
Should anyone be interested in exploring this option, we strongly recommend having a talk with one of us to get a feel for the lessons we have learned to-date. This will give you a head-start as you embark on your own exploration of the software.”
Thanks so much for the Lion’s Perspective Gerry and best of luck to the Esquimalt Lions Club!