ORLANDO – Priority Credit Union has chosen Aux, a Lakewood, Colo.-based CUSO, to provide it with a full accounting function.
With a new management team and a forward-looking mindset focused on collaboration and soundness, the 90-year-old credit union is turning the corner towards a healthier future, the CUSO said.
“We engaged the Aux Team to replace prior accounting staff and help us ‘untangle the spaghetti’ and get our books in order,” said Alan Rowe, chief strategy officer at the $61-million PCU. “I came into PCU last year to lead a turnaround, as the credit union has been severely troubled for a number of years. Among the many challenges new management encountered was a complete mess in its accounting area— from sloppy, incorrect entries going in all directions, to numerous unreconciled accounts going back a few years, and almost everything in between.”
Aux, which specializes in expert-level accounting services, said it finds situations like this are more common than one might expect.
“The credit union industry is facing challenges from numerus directions right now,” said Diane Parham, CFO and head of Accounting Services at Aux. “We feel that if we can take the burden of accounting off the plate of a credit union who is struggling, we can allow them to instead focus on managing their CU.”
Increasing Number Turn to Partnership
According to Aux, an increasing number of credit unions are finding that partnering with a collaborative accounting team provides tremendous benefits.
“For healthy and troubled credit unions alike, mitigating key- person risk, creating effective separation of duties and minimizing staffing concerns are compelling,” the CUSO said. The first to offer full credit union accounting services in the country, Aux Accounting Services cover daily duties, Call Report and budget preparation, and everything in between, it added.
In early 2020, Rowe reached out to Aux with interest in their specialized accounting services, which have helped many credit unions clean up their accounting function. “They have done an outstanding job in rectifying all those problems in just a few months and have set us up with great systems and reporting, using industry best practices,” said Rowe.
Since the partnership began, Aux’s team of highly qualified accountants has assisted with everything from ACH processing to participation in PCU board meetings. “PCU has been a great partner to work with. They’ve worked hard to get us in touch with the right vendors to clear up balancing issues and worked side by side with us as we research outages. We are looking forward to future forecasts and budgets to help them plan for a brighter tomorrow,” said Parham.
‘Built-In Backup’
“Aux provides built-in backup as well as financial consultation with their team of experts,” added Rowe. “We view them as a key strategic partner as we work to turn the corner and build a premier credit union to serve the Central Florida community for the future.” “At Aux we believe in the strength of the ‘people helping people’ philosophy and we’re proud to be the people helping the people who help the people,” concludes Parham.
The Aux suite of collaborative back office services include full-service accounting and CFO-level services, full-service compliance, and data analytics, which was just launched in June of 2020. For info: auxteam.com/solutions/.
Aux, established in 1992, is owned by 55 credit unions, and serves nearly 200 participating clients.