PairSoft Helps Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots Scale Up without Hiring More Staff

The Client

Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots (L-US) consists of missionary volunteers and staff from Canada and the United States helping over 60 communities in remote Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

The Challenge

A down economy can certainly take its toll on huge corporations. But for small ministries, like The Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots (L-US), with only 14 employees altogether (four work from the head office in Brookfield, Wisconsin), tough times can be truly damaging. Yet as L-US’s Chief Financial Officer, Paul Flaa, learned, a wise investment in PairSoft at just the right time helped save his company in a big way.

L-US needed the ability to handle more volume without hiring more staff, and since all donor information was entered in by hand, Flaa and a co-worker wondered how they would shoulder the burden during a busy fourth quarter. He sought software that would not only enable them to process donations and gather donor information via barcodes, but also eventually assist with electronic bank deposits under Check 21.

The Solution

After a few months with PairSoft, Flaa admits he hasn’t even scratched the surface of the services PairSoft offers. For example, he can process gifts in a fraction of the time it used to take: “Now two of us are splitting that position in addition to our other work. Kudos to PairSoft. There’s no way we could do that before.”

He said the check scanner picks up nearly every dollar amount and then enters it into the Check 21 system for processing. All the while, PairSoft logs, categorizes and analyzes data provided by the bar codes on returning paperwork. “Those were fields we’d be manually putting into our system,” he said. Now he can enter information from 104 reply cards in the same time it takes someone to enter 20 manually.

The Results

L-US no longer has to mail files to homebound fundraising staffers either, since they can access information via the Internet. Flaa reported it is easy to train new users. “I just created a 30-step procedure so anyone can do it. That’s a testament to PairSoft.” “When we were looking to get PairSoft we were hoping for growth,” he claimed. “We were at the brink of needing more help.” But rather than suggesting L-US spend thousands of dollars for a new employee’s salary and benefits, Flaa said PairSoft helps his company keep the same size staff and process more volume. “We’re able to do more with the same technology,” he explained. “PairSoft has allowed us to survive.”

Measures of Success

• Now, in mere seconds, teammates at satellite locations around the nation can access paperwork previously stored as hard copies in the main office
• New hires and volunteers have quickly learned the program
• Because of the time savings PairSoft provided, it helped the company stay afloat during challenging economic times