Case Study: New Directions for Children, Youth, Adults, and Families achieves rapid foster-parent payments and scalable operational automation with Sparkrock

New Directions for Children, Youth, Adults, and Families - Customer Case Study

New Directions for Children, Youth, Adults, and Families is a long‑established Winnipeg non‑profit serving 3,000+ clients across 16 programs with an $51M operating budget and 800+ staff. Facing outdated, disparate systems (including an old ACCPAC finance system), time‑consuming manual administration—most notably twice‑monthly payments to 200 foster parents that took over an hour of keying—and chaotic, manual scheduling, the organization sought a scalable modern ERP. They engaged Sparkrock and its Sparkrock ERP platform (powered by Microsoft Dynamics) to replace fragmented tools and support future growth.

Sparkrock implemented a single integrated ERP including GL enhancements, Employee Self‑Service (expense claims and payment requests), and workforce/HR‑payroll modules, plus on‑site consulting and change management. As a result, New Directions has scaled from a $21M to a $51M organization over the last decade, reduced foster parent payment processing from over an hour to seconds by importing payment lists into the GL, and is automating scheduling to cut overtime and manual work. Sparkrock’s sector experience and best‑practice guidance have also sped implementation and improved long‑term efficiency.

New Directions for Children, Youth, Adults, and Families

Jennifer Hume

Director of Financial and Operational Support