“I don’t know why any controller wouldn’t want to do this.” That’s what Leilani Sivsov, CCM, Chief Operating Officer, Coldstream Country Club, says about CE Payments.
"It’s so much easier and faster for us. It’s cut our steps in ½. We’ve minimized our handling of checks and opportunities for errors. It makes our reconciliations dramatically smoother and we’ve improved our cash flow. And to top it off, it’s more ‘green.’" For all of those reasons, Leilani was adamant that members make the switch when it was rolled out.
“I told everyone, we’re going green, this is our new process, and anyone that doesn’t want to participate will have to opt-out.” The result was that in the course of 4-5 months the club had a nearly 50% adoption rate, and has since surpassed that mark. During that time she did have to track down some members when they didn’t make the switch or opt-out and explain the process. But she found that it rarely took more than a phone call and she could often walk the members through the process on the phone to get them set up. She attributes the acceptance to the fact that it’s a time saver for everyone involved and just a smarter way to operate. “When any new member joins or I’m doing an orientation, I explain the process, and they invariably say, ‘That’s great.’ They love that they don’t have to think about sending the payment.”
Like anywhere there are a few hold-outs. There are those that want to write the check and drop it off at the club because they like to do that. Those amount to little more than a handful of members currently and she’s grateful for that – and all of the time she has got back in her day.