Creative Associates Integrates Time Tracking, Expense Reporting & Microsoft Dynamics To Streamline Compliance Complexities

Managing compliance complexities can be burdensome for organizations like Creative Associates International, which has undertaken projects in more than 85 countries and has a professional staff of over 1,000 people around the world.

To finance its vital work providing on-the-ground development services and forging partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions to global challenges, Creative Associates works with funding partners like USAID, an international development agency of the U.S. government, which has strict guidelines for reporting time and expenses. As a result, Creative Associates is regularly audited, which requires the organization to provide detailed time and expense records by project and be able to correlate these records with project funding sources.

To get a grip on compliance issues and improve its accounting process, Creative Associates International relies on DATABASICS time tracking and expense reporting applications, which have streamlined critical workflows and enabled the organization to focus more on its international development projects and less on administrative tasks.

Gail Jones-Nemeth, Financial Systems Analyst with Creative Associates, says the organization evaluated several solutions but felt they were either too difficult to use, or didn’t integrate well with Microsoft Dynamics SL, its accounting software.

“DATABASICS won hands-down. The key thing that the DATABASICS timesheet and expense applications provide us is a workflow. We wanted to be able to capture, store and retrieve documentation electronically, so when we get audited, all of that documentation is immediately accessible. Having time and expenses together has been a really big success for us.”

- Gail Jones-Nemeth, Financial Systems Analyst with Creative Associates

DATABASICS’ flexibility allows Creative Associates to configure the application for internal processes. “We wanted it to run in a more automated way, so we worked with DATABASICS to setup a process to push everything automatically,” says Jones-Nemeth.

While DATABASICS allows for custom reporting, it is so intuitive that the organization assembles reports using the application’s menus.

DATABASICS was easy to implement because the integrations Creative Associates set up worked for time and expense reporting, so the organization didn’t need to configure two different systems. On the expense side, DATABASICS integrates with Dynamics SL to enable direct deposit payments for expenses. For timesheets, DATABASICS integrates with UKG Pro Employee Pay for payroll processing.

DATABASICS’s delivery model is another attractive feature for Creative Associates. “Because it’s a cloud-based application, I don’t have to do any of the maintenance of the databases,” says Jones-Nemeth. “I delegate the small amount of administration to super users.” With database administration handled behind the scenes with DATABASICS, she says, “Minimal support is ever needed for the application.”

One of the biggest benefits of DATABASICS is enabling streamlined compliance with requirements from funding partners.

“What DATABASICS brings to the party is its ability to provide breakdowns by project, by task and other time sheet components, which are absolutely required in order to meet requirements for USAID projects for government contracts. Without that, I think we would be hard pressed to be able to provide good reporting. It’s been an extremely important thing for us to have,”

- Gail Jones-Nemeth, Financial Systems Analyst with Creative Associates

During the pandemic, Creative Associates has focused on launching timesheet tracking in their field offices. This capability now operates in three new countries so far and has been well received. There are project plans to continue implementing it other countries.

Adopting a new application isn’t always easy, especially if it’s mission-critical. But DATABASICS smoothed the way for Creative Associates with attentive support. Through the years, Creative Associates has continued to add functionality to their DATABASICS implementation as their business requirements change or special situations arise. “We’ve always been able to rely on innovative thinking from our DATABASICS consultant to allow us to properly add additional features,” says Jones-Nemeth.

Jones-Nemeth also offers sage advice to organizations considering DATABASICS.

“Fully understand DATABASICS’s capabilities, get the data migration right and be absolutely sure before you turn it on that the integrations are working perfectly.”

- Gail Jones-Nemeth, Financial Systems Analyst with Creative Associates

Because when you get it right, she says, “It just works.”