Since its inception in 1986, Teen Mania Ministries (www.teenmania.org) has been reaching out to hundreds of thousands of teens across the world through several different channels. Located in Garden Valley, TX, their mission is to provoke a young generation to passionately pursue Jesus Christ and to take His life-giving message to the ends of the earth! They accomplish this through mission trips, summer camps, T.V. and radio broadcasts, The Honor Academy and many other ventures.
With one of the largest summer mission trip organizations for teens in the United States, Teen Mania receives many checks each day for donations and trip payments for each teen. In addition to their mission trips, they also have The Honor Academy which is a one-year post-high school internship. There are 650 interns each year and are supported by donations as well. Teen Mania was processing about 1,500 checks a day by hand, utilizing 4 full time staff members. The process was extremely time-consuming because not only was each check being copied and then filed away, but before that, it had to be matched and verified to ensure that it was applied to the correct teen’s account. With their missions growth and The Honor Academy expanding each year, Teen Mania was looking for a better solution.
Solution
After installing AudioTel’s RemitPlus Solution, Teen Mania experienced a radical change in their check posting. Since most of the checks Teen Mania receives do not have a remittance stub, looking up each account to ensure the right check was being applied to the correct account was incredibly time consuming. RemitPlus has the ability to read and memorize the MICR Line, so each time a check is received, it is easily applied to the correct teen’s account with out any extra keying.
RemitPlus also allows Teen Mania to do research and categorize items quickly. If a donor calls with a question, the staff can easily locate check amounts, make sure the check has cleared, and much more.
Results
Since Teen Mania has installed RemitPlus, they have seen a significant reduction in the amount of time employees spend on check processing. One person is now able to handle all of the incoming checks on most days, down from four, which frees up volunteers to assist Teen Mania in better ways. They no longer have to photocopy each check, and searching is performed in seconds. The system has greatly improved Teen Mania’s procedures and accuracy. “RemitPlus has made an unbelievable impact on how we operate, the accuracy of the check posting has made a tremendous difference for us,” said David Neal, Teen Mania’s IT Director and Chief Quality Officer.
