Live Better by Centric CU
Monthly Podcast featuring financial tips from Centric Credit Union
Live Better by Centric CU
Live Better Podcast Ep 338: Our Journey to Better Banking Continued
Unlock the full potential of your business with Centric's groundbreaking online banking upgrade, "Journey to Better." Join me and our insightful guest, Casey Messer, Centric's training manager, as we explore how this innovative platform is designed to streamline financial management for business owners. Experience the freedom of customized user access, enhanced security, and seamless integration with tools like QuickBooks and positive pay. Discover how the app's new "conversations" feature ensures quick, efficient communication with Centric staff, making transaction inquiries a breeze. As we prepare for the platform's exciting launch in March, you'll gain valuable insights into how these changes can transform your business operations.
As we conclude our dynamic two-part series, Casey and I share our enthusiasm for the Journey to Better living and business management. We express heartfelt gratitude for your support and encourage you to stay connected by subscribing to the Live Better podcast on your favorite platforms. Keep up with us on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube, for the latest updates and content that enriches both your personal and professional life. Don't forget to visit our monthly blog at MyCentric.org for more in-depth exploration of these topics. Together, let's embrace a future of improved living and thriving business practices with Centric!
Welcome back to the Live Better podcast, and I'm your host and Centric Senior Vice President of Marketing, Kelli Green. Today we're diving into something exciting that's going to make managing your finances easier than ever Centric's new online banking upgrade, journey to Better. Join us as we dive into this second part of our two-part series and in this episode we'll explore what this upgrade really means for you as a business owner. We'll discuss how this new platform can streamline operations, make transactions smoother and provide insights to help you grow. And today we'll be joined with lead expert and Centric training manager, Casey Messer.
Kelli Green:Welcome to the Live Better podcast, Casey. Thank you, we're glad to have you back again for another month. So, as we've talked about this too, we've discussed Journey to Better, and it is a two-part series to introduce our members to all things upgrades what they're going to see through their mobile app changes, their mobile app upgrades, what's new to them, what maybe they never had before and we talked a little bit about that last month what that looks like for our members. But today we really want to focus this month's attention to what does that look like for a business member? So just maybe take us back through for those that didn't necessarily hear you know who you are and what you do for us here at the credit union. So tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do for us and throw in some personal information for us.
Casey Messer:So I'm the training manager here at Centric, train and develop new staff and our existing staff. So I'm obviously a part of this big project that we're doing here at Centric, just as we get staff ready and as we work out everything to deliver this to our members. Just a little bit about me I'm married. I have two kids. We're local here in West Monroe, born and raised and been here, so the community is really important to me in this area. I'm excited to be here at Center again to be a part of this.
Kelli Green:Oh yeah, this is wonderful. You've been here for many years and had the opportunity really to see our credit union evolve and work in so many different departments but with really large initiatives and big goals, and you've been a part of those things and I think you would agree that this program that we're doing right now will probably have lasting effects on our members. Yeah, well, and to that point.
Casey Messer:I think there's been members who have been here for a really long time and they've seen the evolution of it too, and they're going to be so excited to see what's coming.
Kelli Green:I agree it's a lot, and change is kind of awkward. You know we don't always enjoy change, so to speak. You know some of us like it more so than others, but I think it's the biggest piece for us as a credit union is to communicate it well to our members, and we want them to understand that you're hearing about this well in advance. So the upgrades we're talking about today are really going to be live in March. We're hoping to have all things live in March 3rd and then we'll be open for business and can answer any questions on March 4th for our members. So this will be exciting. All right, so let's take it through. As a business owner, let's kind of think about you know, how could this new online banking platform really make managing my business easier easier for me?
Casey Messer:So there are a lot of tools that are going to be added, and so, as a business owner, there's a lot of things like, maybe, positive pay or even QuickBooks that you need access to and really you want to utilize to make managing your finances for your business easier, quicker, more efficient. There's also things like user management, so maybe you have a team of people working for you and they do different functions within your organization. You're going to, as a business owner, have the ability to set all that up and to manage that so that that workflow can happen seamlessly. Oh, I love it. I think that is great.
Kelli Green:So, as a business owner, you know we may have someone that you know handles our bookkeeping even to you know how do they manage this information? A CPA, it could be whomever. I think what's most important too is that we think about is you can genuinely assign exactly. If you only have someone that's maybe writing a check and they're limited to, say, $500, you can limit that. If it is, say, you're limited to pay utility expense or whatever that might be, you as the business owner, can set those access points. That's right and that security to me. I think you know that someone would really want to consider from a financial institution that's helping manage your finances. It is. So tell us about you know what tools would help your team handle transactions and approvals really, you know, more efficiently handle transactions and approvals, really, you know, more efficiently.
Casey Messer:So I think, just kind of going back to the user management side of that, I think that really to me brings out the word efficient. You know before this tool, what were you doing and what did that process look like. And so now having the ability to, from your phone or from your desktop, go in to your primary financial institution and have everything under one roof really is what you call it Right and manage. That, I think, is going to make it more efficient.
Kelli Green:So if, say, me as a business owner, I have some questions about maybe a different check that came through, or asking has this check come through? Or a particular transaction that maybe I'm not aware of, how might I jumpstart a conversation and just really be communicated with in the quickest way possible?
Casey Messer:Yeah, so inside of the new app we will have what's called conversations. You can message us and we will be able to help you with a specific transaction. So maybe you're speaking with the secretary of your organization and you are trying to understand what a particular transaction or something that came through is. Not only can you speak from business to business staff member, but you can also add in a centric staff member. So if you have a question, you can't identify something or you just need to ask additional questions about it, you can actually click from the transaction to talk more about what you see. If you have questions, you can attach an image or a seat and start that conversation there. Oh, that's wonderful.
Kelli Green:There's long gone are the days of just exchanging emails and have a delay of communication there. You can still always pick up the phone and call someone who helps manage. You know from the business department. You can speak with them, of course, but this is something that really dials in. Specifically, you're logged in through Two-factor authenticator. You have the ability for we have the ability really and truly to identify who you are and you can choose that transaction and immediately have a conversation about that specifically. You don't have to say go with me and my account to look at this particular month. You pull the transaction and all the data that we need is right there. It's not research that our members have to go through and do. It's just a click of a button, and that, to me, is so seamless, I love it. So you know, we know that there's probably some payroll systems, or even accounting too. For that regard, take us through. What does that look like from a business member?
Casey Messer:Yeah, so being able to manage the payroll from within the app or online banking is huge to me, I think. So, going back to the accounting side, too, we're talking about user management. You can allow your CPA access and give them the access they need to view and even have conversations with them inside of the mobile app or the online banking platform to say, hey, this is what's going on, or maybe they have questions for you on a transaction. So being able to see all of that, I think really helps. That's amazing. That's it. Yeah, you think about for tax prep.
Kelli Green:You think about if they're meeting with their CPA for maybe, a purchase of a new business or purchase of a new large item or what have you. This can be taken care of Literally. They can take a look at the documents as necessary, review the cash flow if they need to, just by you saying, hey, we will create a login that would work for them and they only have certain limitations. Yeah, that's huge, that's awesome. I love it. I think that's so great. So, thinking about this too, you know it's all under one umbrella.
Casey Messer:You log in and you have all these tools at your fingertips and you can access everything. So, like we're talking about you know, from the accounting side, talking about maybe managing your QuickBooks or your ACHs that you have All of that is together under one roof, so when you click, you can navigate there and you don't have to worry about logging into these different areas.
Kelli Green:That's awesome One single login. You have access to what you need and you can take care of it there. You think of the efficiencies and the time that that's going to save our business owners, and that's really what this is all about. I love it. Well, casey, you know, is there really anything else that maybe we've missed that our business owners would really benefit from knowing?
Casey Messer:I just think looking forward to what's coming, and you know how can you use these new tools. They're coming in. Connect with Kalinda, who works here at the credit union. She is ready to set you up on the treasury side, the treasury management side. If that's not something that you've already engaged with us, go ahead and get that conversation going and see what options are out there and how we can set you up.
Kelli Green:But go ahead and become a user. You can go ahead and if you're even listening and maybe you're not a member but you're considering maybe even opening up a business account, let's go ahead and get that started. That's one thing. That's out of the way. As we mentioned earlier, we're going live March 3rd of this year and it's important that we want to make sure that we cover anything and everything that we can ahead of time so that when we go live, you have our new mobile app, you'll register as a new user and you're ready to go. That's right. I love it.
Kelli Green:Well, Casey, thank you so much for being here with us today and also last month, as we're talking about our journey to better. But this wraps up our two-part series, so thank you for listening to our podcast and tune back in next month for another episode of the Live Better podcast by Centric. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and to ensure you never miss out on helpful tips. Like us on Facebook at Centric Federal Credit Union and find us at MyCentric on Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok and YouTube. You can always find more information about today's topic on our monthly blog and more at MyCentricorg. Centric is federally insured by the NCUA.