DRAFT | SUCCESS STORIES
The Stelter Company Grew Its Finance Team 3x on Crestwood Cloud-Hosted Dynamics GP
Technology matters, but people matter more. What has made our relationship with Crestwood successful isn’t simply the software or the cloud environment. It’s the expertise, responsiveness, and partnership your team brings to every engagement.
LOCATION
Headquartered in West Des Moines, IA
INDUSTRY
Marketing Agency
APPLICATION REPLACED
On-Premises Microsoft Dynamics GP
SOLUTION
Crestwood Cloud-Hosted Microsoft Dynamics GP
The Business Challenge
The Stelter Company serves more than 1,200 nonprofit organizations with print campaigns, digital subscriptions, consulting services, and multi-year contracts, all billed differently and all running at the same time. When Chad Howard joined in 2007, three people and a stack of spreadsheets ran the finance function.
For six and a half years, Stelter ran on EFI E-PACE, a print production platform with an embedded accounting module. It could handle subscriptions, barely. It processed slowly, errored out, and needed vendor intervention to fix. Month-end was a manual stitching exercise led by two people who couldn’t easily be replaced.
When Crestwood brought Stelter back to Dynamics GP in 2016, the foundation finally held. The infrastructure underneath it was still on-premises Dell PowerEdge servers in a locked server room, VPN connections that dropped, and tape backups on rotation. When the entire company went remote in March 2020, the old setup held, mostly. Nobody wanted to build a growing finance department on it.
Key challenges included:
- 1,200+ nonprofit clients across print, subscriptions, consulting and multi-year contracts, each billed differently
- On-premises servers in a locked server room, with tape backups on rotation
- A geofenced VPN with connections that dropped
- A growing finance department with infrastructure nobody wanted to build on
Crestwood’s Approach
Crestwood had been Stelter’s GP partner since the 2016 implementation, and that relationship had already proven itself. Moving to the cloud was a natural extension of that trust, and it kept GP, the system that was working, in place.
Crestwood migrated Stelter to a hosted GP environment, then later upgraded it to an Azure-backed cloud with Duo multi-factor authentication. The old geofenced, location-restricted VPN gave way to a simple rule: if you have internet, you’re in.
The move to Crestwood Cloud covered:
- Dynamics GP off on-premises Dell PowerEdge servers and into a hosted environment
- A later upgrade to an Azure-backed cloud
- Duo multi-factor authentication in place of the geofenced VPN
The implementation followed Crestwood’s standard: structured milestones, clear documentation, no surprises. “Every implementation is stressful, but we had Juliet [Constantino],” Howard says. “She kept us focused on the milestones and navigated everything with us.” The go-live was clean, the outcome Crestwood’s Non-Event Go-Live approach is built for.
With infrastructure off the plate, Stelter’s finance function could focus on what it was there to do: support 1,200 clients across complex billing arrangements, ISV integrations for subscription management and collections, and BI reporting through Domo.
Business Impact
The clearest measure of what changed is headcount. When Howard joined Stelter, finance was three people. Today it’s a full department: CFO, director of FP&A, accounting manager, two senior accountants, AR specialist, payroll and office administrator, and additional support. The client base and the complexity grew alongside it, and the infrastructure didn’t get in the way.
With nearly 25% of Stelter’s workforce now fully remote and the rest hybrid, dependable access is the baseline. Duo MFA replaced the geofenced VPN and SharePoint replaced on-premises network files, so connection drops and geolocation restrictions are problems the team no longer has. There have been zero security incidents across the entire cloud engagement.
Reporting shifted from a historical exercise to a strategic tool. Stelter connected GP to Domo for BI, giving leadership real-time visibility into financial performance, profitability, and operational results by service line. “Reporting has become a strategic tool instead of simply a historical exercise,” Howard says.
Key Results
- Grew from a 3-person accounting team to a full finance department without the infrastructure becoming the constraint
- 1,200+ nonprofit clients served across complex, multi-arrangement billing
- Finance department can operate fully remote with cloud access
- Zero security incidents since moving to Crestwood Cloud
- Domo BI integration expanded financial reporting into strategic insights, profitability analysis, and operational performance metrics
- 10+ year partnership with Crestwood, now planning the next ERP migration together
What’s Next
Ten years in, GP is still the workhorse and Crestwood is still the partner helping it run. Stelter is already planning its next ERP migration, targeting Business Central or Acumatica and exploring Crestwood leading the engagement. The complexity of a 1,200-client billing system with multiple ISVs, Salesforce CRM, and Marketing Cloud integrations means the planning horizon is already in motion.
For now, Crestwood Cloud keeps the current environment running reliably, securely, and without requiring the finance team to think about it. Crestwood supports GP clients who want to keep Dynamics GP running and current, and runs the GP Path Assessment when the question becomes whether to stay on GP, move to Business Central or move to Acumatica.
“If you’re looking for a partner rather than just a vendor, Crestwood has proven that distinction time and time again.”
Still Running Dynamics GP On-Premises?
If your team is still managing GP on-premises and wondering whether the infrastructure can support what comes next, that’s the conversation to start. Crestwood Cloud hosts Dynamics GP on Azure, and the same team supports the ERP and the infrastructure.
Ready to be the Next Success Story?
Keep GP working while you decide what comes next. Crestwood hosts, secures and supports Dynamics GP in Crestwood Cloud. When you are ready to plan the next move, the same team runs the GP Path Assessment across staying on GP, Business Central and Acumatica.