By Lisa Dahm
Hawaii Catholic Herald
According to Lisa Sakamoto, chief financial officer for the Diocese of Honolulu, the best financial statements in parishes and schools are accurate, timely and complete — a long-term goal of the diocese.
After years of surveys, financial reviews and collection audits, the diocese on July 1 debuted the Sage Intacct accounting system in all parishes and schools.
Sage Intacct offers employees and parishioners a modern, effective financial system that provides transparency, strong security and upgraded real-time efficiency in reviewing their budgets and setting future financial goals, according to Sakamoto.
Sage Intacct is a cloud-based management software that is the first financial application endorsed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The new system is not just a technical shift but also a cultural one, as the finance office pursues a more unified approach across the diocese, Sakamoto said.
Gradual rollout
Sage Intacct was tested by diocesan staff for about a year and by a pilot group of a few parishes and schools since January before the finance office began introducing it to the entire diocese.
“We’re using those lessons (learned in the initial launch) to improve the implementation and to work out all the kinks,” Sakamoto said.
The diocese will use a standard chart of accounts that allows the finance team to consolidate financial statements and produce instant reports, allowing for better financial oversight.
The new system also gives the bishop of the Diocese of Honolulu access to parishes’ and schools’ financial information in real time, improving efficiency and communication.
“If his finance council wants consolidated financial statements, we can push a button every month and give it to them, whereas we had to use staffing … and do a lot of entries and things like that (before),” Sakamoto said. “Now, it’s more efficient.”
Sakamoto said that when she first started at the diocese in 2009, each parish and school had its own accounting system, and an employee would take every single financial statement and enter it into an Excel worksheet to determine total revenues for the diocese. An auditor also visited each parish on a rotating basis.
Since 2011, the diocese and its parishes and schools had been using QuickBooks to standardize its accounting system and track income and expenses — a self-contained financial management software that only logged activity and could not track expenditures in real time.
“We always try to improve to get something better and better, and Bishop Larry (Silva) has always supported that from our side,” Sakamoto said.
Improved tracking
Parish and school business managers across the state began in-person Sage Intacct trainings last month. There is also an online “help desk” to assist users through the initial transition, and training will continue as the system evolves.
Michele Lum, parish accounting manager for the diocese, said the new system would enhance transparency through safeguards that include a separate permissions list for each person according to their position, which ensures donations are tracked correctly and used as intended. It also contains a more intricate tagging system that allows for better tracking.
“With the new system, we can categorize activity within a parish, and we can show that to a pastor very easily, by the click of a button, to offer them a more complete story of the parishes’ expenditures,” Lum said.
“If they’re not utilizing (their finances) the way that they want to, how can they shift activity or shift spending to really meet whatever goals that they want to set for their community?” Lum said. “There’s so much that can be done when a pastor looks at information that way — I’m really excited for that.”
Lum said that after parish and schools are trained to use and interpret financial results from Sage Intacct, they will have unlimited ways of building future financial goals.
“Once everyone’s on this system, (they can) start building reports that are easy to read, that are user-friendly, that can be guided by a pastor’s goal for their parish or for their school,” she said. “You don’t need to be an accountant to understand the reporting aspect.”
Helping schools
Deacon Rafael Mendoza, Hawaii Catholic Schools accounting manager, sees the new system as beneficial to all schools in the diocese.
As a licensed certified public accountant in the Philippines who had done general accounting at an American multinational company, he found the QuickBooks system was easy to learn, but it had limited functionality.
“I often had to perform analysis outside the system, exporting QuickBooks data to Excel to get the work done,” said Deacon Mendoza, who has been in Hawaii almost 20 years.
“The change positions us for the future,” he said. “As parishes and schools come onto the platform, the diocese gains a consistent foundation for financial management — one that supports timely, accurate and complete reporting, sound decision-making and the long-term sustainability of our parishes and schools.”
Deacon Mendoza said that though change is never easy, moving to the new system was the right decision for the diocese.
“Sage Intacct gives us the tools to manage our schools with both a pastoral heart and a business mindset, and that combination ultimately serves everyone the diocese is called to serve,” he said.
Sakamoto said Catholic Charities Hawaii also uses Sage Intacct, and Hope Services Hawaii will make the switch as well.
“Even our sister organizations will have the same accounting system, which is kind of nice,” she said.
CNS file photo