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"COCC gave us much more
automation and vastly improved our ability to quickly perform research."
Leslieanne Black, Senior
Vice President and CFO, Litchfield Bancorp |
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When Litchfield
Bancorp and Northwest Community Bank formed a mutual holding company in 2001, a
key operating concept was independence. “We wanted to build on the strengths of
our two organizations while maintaining our separate identities,” said
Leslieanne Black, Senior Vice President and CFO at Litchfield Bancorp.
That meant
consolidating both companies’ financials but also preserving separate budgets,
balance sheets and reporting. It also meant sharing staff from each bank’s
accounting departments and delivering information that both companies needed at
the speed their businesses required. The holding company’s solution was Oracle
Financials delivered as an ASP solution by COCC.
“COCC’s ASP version
of Oracle Financials gives us much more automation and vastly improves our
ability to research,” said Ms. Black. “The system handles our two banks and their subsidiaries with ease, and gives us the tools we need to access and
distribute financial information.”
The Oracle system
stores all transactions in a single database, enabling the banks and their
holding company to research and report exactly what they need. “We can produce
reports any way we like and schedule them to print wherever they’re needed in
our two organizations,” said Ms. Black. “It saves time over printing the reports
in accounting and then faxing them out to the other areas.” |
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COCC’s Customer
Service Manager, Matt L’Heureux, added that COCC takes maximum advantage of
Oracle’s integration with the core processing system which is also based on Oracle.
“Because both banks
use COCC for their core processing functions, we’re able to do a lot more,” said
L’Heureux. “We can reconcile totals from the banks’ general ledgers and the loan and
deposit systems. Our communications network and online access to reports enables
the banks to grant other departments access to reports even if they don’t have
actual on-line access to General Ledger itself.”
The COCC network also
enables staff members to perform specialized accounting functions for both banks
without leaving their desks. “We can take advantage of a staff member’s
expertise without losing time to the drive between the two banks,” said Ms.
Black.
Overall, Ms. Black
said Oracle Financials has helped place the two banks on the same technology
level, smoothing holding company operations and saving time for both
organizations. “The system easily accommodates the banks’ subsidiaries,” she
said. “It’s built to handle any multi-bank organization.”
“COCC’s ASP product
also simplifies the product since COCC does the upgrades, the fixes, the
training and the support which is critical to getting the most out of the
system,” said Ms. Black. “It’s a great way to go.”
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