Empowering the Charitable Gaming Industry
Boardwalk Gaming & Entertainment Inc. is one company that took advantage of an innovative technology. It recently integrated financial reporting from a number of locations using a Web-based portal. The privately-held, Toronto-based company runs 22 licensed charity bingo halls in Ontario and British Columbia, conducts promotional games at sporting events during intermissions and runs casino and gaming television programs.
It used to take up to two weeks for the company to collect financial information from its bingo halls and run reports on how the business was doing. Previously, details about revenue -- in U.S. and Canadian currency allocated by charity, time of day, type of bingo games played and concessions sold -- and expenses, including prize money awarded, salaries and other costs, arrived in the Toronto office by fax or e-mail.
Data had to be manually entered into accounting and spreadsheet applications before reports could be run for analysis, said Angela Howell, Boardwalk's corporate controller. Month-end statements and detailed reports for charity regulators were onerous to produce and marketing decisions could not be made in a timely manner, she added.
To consolidate the flow of data and simplify reporting and analysis, Boardwalk turned to MPower Technologies Inc.
MPower Technologies, which offers information technology, consulting and business intelligence services, created a web-portal that integrated the filing of financial data from each location. Known as the MPower Portal Server, it integrates data from disparate locations, no matter which platform or database a particular office happens to be running on, said Carolyn Tucker, MPower Technologies vice-president of new business development.
Boardwalk bingo hall managers upload financial data each day and "we analyze it in real time and make more strategic business decisions based on locations, events, time of day, attendance, charities and jackpots," Howell says.
In addition, Howell can import data directly from the portal into programs such as Excel and ACCPAC for accounting purposes, and turn around major reports in less than a day. The "smooth transition" to the web portal took two months to get all locations on board, Howell says, and cost Boardwalk about $80,000. There were no capital costs other than one additional server and staff were comfortable with the new system after "a couple of hours of training, because it conformed to our business processes." Now, Howell could not imagine business at Boardwalk without on-line integrated financial reporting.
