St. Coletta’s of Illinois: Saving Time and Serving Others with TRAVERSE

Serving the greater Chicago area from a home base in Tinley Park, Illinois, the St. Coletta’s of Illinois non-profit community organization has been helping individuals with special needs lead more independent lives for over 60 years.

Started in 1949, St. Coletta’s now spans across 27 residential facilities, several on-the-job training sites, and the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. School in Tinley Park. They employ 325 people and assist over 400 developmentally disabled people and their families through their programs.

Humble Beginnings

St. Coletta’s humble beginnings started with an equally humble financial system. “The organization had no real accounting system from when the organization started” Says Annette Skafgaard, CPA and Director of Finance for St. Coletta’s.

Today, with over 3,000 separate financial accounts, St. Coletta’s depends upon TRAVERSE business software from Open Systems, Inc. to keep the books. St. Colatta’s has been using TRAVERSE since 2005, after converting from Open Systems’ other software suite, OSAS which they had been using since the 1980s.

Integrated Payroll

With hundreds of employees spread across dozens of sites and working for multiple programs, TRAVERSE’s integrated payroll system helps St. Coletta’s keep their accounting straight. “Having Payroll feed directly into General Ledger is a big time saver,” says Skafgaard.

All 325 employees are coded so the costs associated with their services are automatically applied to the correct department. Recurring entry functionality also helps keep the month-end processes as brief as possible.

Robust Reporting with Ease

As a non-profit organization with multiple funding sources, robust and accurate reporting is a must for St. Coletta’s. With TRAVERSE, Skafgaard maintains separate income statements for each department, as well as profit and loss statements for each work site.

“The reporting requirements are a challenge,” says Skafgaard, “and TRAVERSE makes it easier.”

The Bottom Line

The true bottom line for St. Coletta’s of Illinois is the quality of service they can provide for the community. “The work we do speaks for itself, and the more efficient our system can be, the more we can serve,” says Skafgaard. TRAVERSE helps to ensure that the accounting role takes no more resources than necessary.

“If it can save us time and effort,” adds Skafgaard, “then we can put our efforts toward what we’re really here for.”