Over 20% of U.S. Farm Credit Associations Select Kaufman Hall Performance Management Solutions to Help Overcome Unprecedented Challenges

As Market Challenges Grow, 11 More Organizations Adopt Kaufman Hall’s Axiom Software

Note: Kaufman Hall Software is now Syntellis Performance Solutions.

CHICAGO May 26, 2020 – Kaufman Hall, a leading provider of enterprise performance management (EPM) software, data, and management consulting services, announced today that 11 more farm credit associations adopted Axiom Software between December 2019 and April 2020. During the especially difficult COVID-19 outbreak and low-rate environment, these investments demonstrate the value Kaufman Hall’s performance management software provides to financial institutions.

AgTexas Farm Credit Services, Texas Farm Credit, Lone Star Ag Credit, and Southern AgCredit are among the 11 farm credit associations to join the Axiom client roster, which means that more than 20% of all U.S. farm credit associations now use Axiom Software.

“We joined several farm credit associations in the Texas District in choosing Axiom Software for our budgeting, planning, and reporting needs,” said Jeff Fairchild, chief financial officer and senior vice president of AgTexas Farm Credit Services. “Axiom solves a number of issues encountered with our prior planning system. We’ve needed the ability to budget and track performance at a branch level for a long time. We also look forward to automating many processes, reducing manual inputs, and providing a single system for budgeting and reporting to facilitate more consistent and timely analysis.”

Lengthy budget cycles have led to increased adoption of the Axiom Planning solution. According to Kaufman Hall’s 2020 Outlook for Financial Institutions, 43% of senior financial executives say budgeting cycles take four or more months, often due to a reliance on manual spreadsheets. Axiom Planning empowers organizations to accelerate their budget cycles, leaving more time for analysis and supporting data and forecast accuracy. It also simplifies reporting to help guide better decision-making.

“The agricultural industry is working to overcome substantial challenges right now, and farm credit organizations need data-driven, strategic insights to help problem-solve and deliver necessary services efficiently,” said Kermit S. Randa, chief executive officer of Kaufman Hall Software. “Quickly responding to changing market conditions has been a struggle for many financial institutions — which is the opposite of what they need in these turbulent times. Axiom Software helps manage data, generate reports and deliver actionable insights so leaders can focus on how to best meet customers’ needs, respond to market shifts, and develop strategies to improve financial performance.”

Reporting is another ongoing challenge for financial institutions, with more than half indicating they struggle to pull data from multiple sources into a single report, create dashboards and visualizations, and drill into reports to understand underlying data. At the time of the Financial Outlook survey in fall 2019, 72% of financial institution leaders planned to improve reporting and analysis to support decision-making, and 61% planned to enhance operational budgeting and forecasting in 2020. The 11 farm credit associations that recently adopted Axiom are executing on those strategic plans.

“I was looking for budget software that could support customization of detailed financial information, when needed, while still having the flexibility to allow for easy application of standardized and general budgeting assumptions,” said Keith Ibrom, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Texas Farm Credit. “Axiom provides the user with this flexibility, and the layered reporting capabilities were an additional benefit that helped solidify my decision to choose Axiom.”

“With an unexpected disruptive event like the COVID-19 outbreak and its effects on already-low interest rates and economic uncertainty, there is simply no room for error or inefficiency,” said Ken Levey, vice president at Kaufman Hall. “Financial institutions have the data they need to survive the difficult times and thrive when the situation improves, but it is often siloed. We are proud to see an increasing number of farm credit associations recognize that Kaufman Hall’s Axiom Software enables them to turn data into insights quickly and look forward to seeing our client roster continue to grow.”


About Kaufman Hall

Kaufman Hall provides a unique combination of software, management consulting and data solutions to help society’s foundational institutions realize sustained success amid changing market conditions. Since 1985, Kaufman Hall has been a trusted advisor to boards and executive management teams, helping them incorporate proven methods, rigorous analytics and industry-leading solutions into their strategic planning and financial management processes, with a focus on achieving their most challenging goals.

Kaufman Hall services use a rigorous, disciplined, and structured approach that is based on the principles of corporate finance. The breadth and integration of Kaufman Hall advisory services are unparalleled, encompassing strategy; financial and capital planning; cost transformation; treasury and capital markets management; and mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures.

Kaufman Hall software includes the Axiom Software Suite, providing sophisticated, flexible performance management solutions that empower finance professionals to analyze results, model the future and optimize organizational decision making. Solutions for long-range planning, budgeting and forecasting, performance reporting, capital planning and cost accounting deliver decision support, reporting and analytics within an integrated software platform. Kaufman Hall’s Clinical Analytics empower healthcare organizations with clinical benchmarks, data and analytics to provide a higher quality of care for optimized performance and improved patient outcomes.

Kaufman Hall’s Axiom Financial Institutions Suite provides performance management solutions for strategic decision management, budgeting and forecasting, funds transfer pricing and profitability management, reporting and analytics, and incentive compensation management delivered on a single, unified platform.

 

 


 

Press Contact:

Philip Anast
Amendola Communications (for Kaufman Hall)
Email: panast@acmarketingpr.com
Phone: 312-576-6990