Modern finance for mission-driven work

Client background

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services — commonly known as The Jewish Board — is one of New York City’s largest and most impactful nonprofit mental health and social service organizations. With a 145-year legacy, it runs over 100 programs, employs 3,000+ staff, and supports 45,000 people annually — connecting children, families and adults across all five boroughs and beyond. In 2017, when the organization chose to replace its on-premise Lawson system, Accounting Manager Rafeena Rahaman and her team sought a cloud-based platform and a trusted alliance to implement it with care and precision.

The business challenge

A thoughtful move to the cloud

Initially, the project was driven by infrastructure needs. Lawson was moving to the cloud, and The Jewish Board wanted to explore other options rather than lift and shift its existing setup. After evaluating NetSuite, Blackbaud and Infor, the team chose Sage Intacct for its nonprofit focus, flexible reporting and strong allocation capabilities.

Baker Tilly didn’t just configure Sage Intacct — they helped The Jewish Board design it around their operational reality. That included building a custom allocation engine and a dynamic invoice module that automatically generates billing based on program specific funding rules.

Strategy and solution

Automation with real impact

Before switching to Sage Intacct, The Jewish Board used manual, paper-based purchasing. Invoices were emailed or printed and approved by hand. Now, the entire process is digital.

Program managers can approve purchases remotely, and non-purchase order invoices are entered directly into the system, streamlining workflows and easing the finance team’s workload.

Allocations and invoicing — once two of the most time-consuming monthly tasks — are now fully automated, thanks to custom tools from Baker Tilly. What used to take Rafeena and her supervisor days now takes just minutes.

Visibility that drives better decisions

Sage Intacct has also transformed how financial data is accessed and used across the organization. Before, reporting was slow and heavily reliant on Excel. Program managers had limited budget visibility, and the finance team often had to manually pull data for stakeholders.

Now, reports are built once and used repeatedly — available with real-time data, drill-down functionality and audit-ready documentation. “Our CFO uses Sage Intacct reports in every executive and board meeting,” Rafeena says. “And program managers can log in and get what they need — without waiting on finance.”

With over 100 programs and 200 departments to track, the ability to slice data by location, program, fund, job code and lease — without over complicating the chart of accounts — is essential. The Sage Intacct dimensions feature, paired with Baker Tilly’s support, makes it possible.

Audit-ready, every day

Audit prep used to involve weeks of back-and-forth — scanning documents, tracking down files and pulling data manually.

Auditors can access documentation directly in Sage Intacct, which is linked to each transaction. That’s saved time, increased transparency and helped streamline compliance with federal and state funding requirements, including Medicaid.

Growth without growing pains

Since implementing Sage Intacct along with Baker Tilly’s Advanced Allocations and custom invoicing, The Jewish Board has seen significant growth in both budget and staff.

Yet, the finance team hasn’t needed to expand at the same pace, thanks to automation, smarter reporting and self-service tools that help manage the increased workload without adding headcount.

The Advanced Allocation module, in particular, has enabled more precise tracking. The team has doubled its tracked allocations — from 50 to over 100 — boosting compliance, reimbursements and clarity.

Looking forward, planning better

The Jewish Board is implementing the Sage Intacct cash management functionality to bring daily bank transactions and improve visibility into real-time cash balances. Once live, this will eliminate end-of-month batch entries and give leadership clearer insight into daily liquidity.

As for the alliance, Rafeena continues to lean on Baker Tilly for support. Whether it’s troubleshooting, version upgrades or expanding into new functionality, she knows she has a team who understands the system — and the mission.