Catholic Cemeteries Association

Builds Efficiency and Saves Money With Sage 300 ERP

The Catholic Cemeteries Association (CCA) owns and manages 30 cemeteries on behalf of the Archdiocese of Hartford. It is the second-largest such association in the country, with ten office locations and nearly 130 employees including seasonal workers. CCA has complex reporting requirements involving multiple locations and departments, and CCA also performs its payroll in house. To meet its exacting accounting needs, CCA relies on Sage 300 ERP.*

Best Value
The company had been using an older version of Sage Pro ERP that had not been updated in years and was no longer keeping up with CCA’s increasing requirements. “We looked at several solutions before selecting Sage 300 ERP,” recalls Bob Salvato, director of finance for CCA. “Sage 300 ERP represents the best value: It offers all of the features and functionality that we need now, it is scalable to keep up with the organization’s future growth, and it is straightforward to implement and use.”

Strong Core Capabilities
The organization’s payroll involves accommodating a collective bargaining agreement with more than 200 task codes. Salvato reports that Sage 300 ERP easily handles the challenge. “We import time entries from each location and process payroll weekly in Sage 300 ERP,” he says. “Checks, complete with signatures, are printed on blank check stock. It is accurate, efficient, and it saves us time and money.”

CCA imports sales and cash receipt data from its industry-specific HMIS application. The level of detail supported by Sage 300 ERP enables CCA to generate the detailed financial statements the organization uses to monitor its own fiscal health and to report to the Archdiocese of Hartford. “My team can access the records and monitor their own department’s performance,” explains Salvato. “Easy access to information helps our organization to be much more efficient.”

System Stability
Salvato recalls that once, in the middle of a vendor check run, CCA’s office lost power. Hours later, when the power was restored, staff worried what damage the outage may have done to the system and data. “We rebooted the server, fired up Sage 300 ERP, and quite literally, it picked up printing exactly where it left off. We were relieved and very impressed.

“We have not given Sage 300 ERP a challenge it hasn’t delivered on,” concludes Salvato. “And we have bigger plans for it in the future. The software’s capabilities are impressive.”