Merrimack Valley Dream Center Improves Their Spend Management Process

About MVDC

Located in Lawrence, MA, Merrimack Valley Dream Center is a non-profit organization focused on serving the needs of the unhoused community as well as the overall public with programs such as back-to-school backpack and supply initiatives, food drives, block parties and more.

The Challenge

Executive Director, Julio Meran, was the only card holder to the one debit card linked to the business account.  As a result, reordering of supplies, budgeting and allocations to each program became another task added to Juilo’s already full plate.  As these tasks grew to taking as much as 12 hours a week, Julio recognized the need for a better solution to save time and ensure projects moved forward.

How PEX Helped

Through Aplos’ integrated partnership with PEX, Julio discovered PEX’s expense management solution and quickly implemented multiple cards to his team of 50-60 volunteers for each program.  The cards and features proved not only to be time savers for purchases but have helped streamline the expense process as well.  “The cards have been working perfectly for us.  I love the mobile app because it’s so easy.  We tend to lose receipts a lot – it’s so easy to lose paper receipts.  [With the app] while you make the purchase and before you submit, you take a picture of the receipt – upload, add notes or tags and it’s done.  It’s not only easy for me but also easy for [the card holder].”

Closing Thoughts

For Julio and the Merrimack Valley Dream Center, adopting PEX has proved to be a valuable asset to their organization.  Not only has Julio saved time but the user friendly interface and reporting has helped him relieve additional stress.  “The reports are awesome!  For the Board of Directors, reports are everything.  [By using PEX] the reports are easy to attain and to understand.”

To those who may be on the fence on adopting a new expense platform, Julio had these final words “I highly recommend it.  It is very user friendly and makes things a lot easier.”