Case Studies by DynaTech Systems

DynaTech Unifies Membership & Finance on Dynamics 365 and Azure for a Global Non‑Profit—Automating Renewals, Tax, and Reconciliation

Written by DynaTech Systems | Oct 4, 2024 8:09:59 AM

Revolutionizing Membership Management and Financial Operations for a Global Educational Network

Founded in 1924, the global non‑profit advances communication and leadership through a hybrid network of in‑person and online clubs. Members build skills via prepared speeches, impromptu responses, and structured evaluations. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, the organization supports ~270,000 members across 14,200+ clubs in 148 countries.

Scale exposed operational bottlenecks. Membership data moved asynchronously, creating eight‑hour processing windows for invoices and payments and slowing initiation, renewal, and education tracking across multiple apps and manual handoffs. Biannual renewals required generating millions of orders and heavy cleanup of unpaid orders. Payment‑to‑bank reconciliation was periodic and manual, limiting transaction‑level visibility. Tax integration couldn’t handle custom entities or processes, and there was no streamlined way to extend special pricing to existing members.

To resolve this, the organization pursued a cloud‑first modernization: Dynamics 365 to unify membership, finance, and operations; Azure for scalable, secure services; Microsoft Fabric for unified analytics; and an AI‑ready intelligence layer to automate exception detection, forecasting, and next‑best actions. Moving to real‑time, API‑first workflows replaces fragmented, batch‑based tasks with automated renewals, accurate tax calculation, daily reconciliation visibility, and measurable gains in speed, accuracy, and member experience.

 

DynaTech's D365 APIs and Tax Integration for Non-Profit Industry:

1. Membership Application and Data Integration

DynaTech Systems developed a real-time data integration system via Rest APIs with the Sitecore Membership Portal and E-commerce platform. Additionally, a robust Membership Application was constructed with features including Start a Club, Membership Enrolment, Membership Renewal, Membership Reinstatement, Membership Transfer, Sponsored Membership (Full/Partial), Club Re-alignment, Member Leadership Roles, Prison Clubs, Membership Certificates, and Education Levels.  

2. Redesigning Application Design and Data Structure

Through a comprehensive re-architecture of the application design and data structure, the introduction of the following productive features has been facilitated: 

  • Membership payment processing no longer necessitates pre-creating orders within the system.
  • The system permits the retrieval of new membership tenure suggestions from the latest records of existing memberships.
  • Upon successful payment, a new membership record is automatically generated.

3. End-to-end transaction Tracing System

A transaction tracing system now matches payment‑gateway transactions to Dynamics and the bank, driving automated daily reconciliation and providing forensic visibility for discrepancies—replacing periodic, manual aggregation.

4. Data Integration and Process Automation

Nearly 54 data entities are aligned through Data Warehouse (DW), orchestrated 16 Power Automate Flows, integrated with 100 APIs, and established an SFTP connection to address various process requirements, including Product and Orders, Membership Process and Financials, Payment Integration, Tax Solutions, Payment Bank Reconciliation, Customer Financials, 3rd Party Logistics, Automated Bank Statement Import, and Address Validation.

5. Real-time Revenue Journals

We converted the Membership data into real-time Revenue Journals incorporating Accrual data. This transformation enables the business to access real-time transaction information without the need for manual intervention. The revenue journals now capture record-level transactions, eliminating the manual monthly single-line entry process.

6. Custom Tax Solution

Due to the limitations of Avalara's standard connector in supporting custom entities or processes, DynaTech developed a tax integration solution using APIs to calculate real-time tax for Product Orders and Memberships. This functionality empowers users to execute the following transactions seamlessly: Retrieve tax values from Avalara, commit tax transactions to Avalara, and Confirm/Post-tax transactions to Avalara.

7. Designed Order-type Validation

We designed and implemented various order types with thorough validation and checks, like: 

  • Regular orders with Member/Non-Member pricing. 
  • Product Engraving - Facilitates the inclusion of personalized text for items like badges or physical certificates. 
  • Auto Award Order - Automatically generated upon the completion of an education level. 
  • Digital Certificate Order - Allows the organization to auto-create Digital Certificate PDFs and send them via automated email. 
  • Gift Certificate Orders—Members can purchase Gift Certificates and redeem them against product orders through the system, eliminating manual maintenance of Gift Certificate emails and redemptions. 
  • Automated process for sending shipping information to the 3PL partner. Upon receiving shipping confirmation, the system automates Packing Slip and Invoice creation, capturing payment upon invoice generation.