Onward We Learn Transforms Budgeting with Martus Solutions

About the Organization

Onward We Learn (OWL) is a federally funded college readiness program based in Rhode Island. Formerly known as the Children's Crusade for Higher Education, OWL supports students through college enrollment, offering academic readiness programming, Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) preparation, career exploration, and more. The organization's work is rooted in the belief that the path to college is a family endeavor, not just an individual one.

Today, CFO Susan Mansillo is one of Martus’ biggest advocates, encouraging other finance leaders in similar situations to give the software a chance.

The Challenge

Like many nonprofit finance leaders, OWL's Chief Finance and Administration Officer Susan Mansolillo had spent years managing budgets spreadsheets and manual consolidation.

When she arrived at Onward We Learn in February of 2022 with a full software stack onboarding plate: Sage Intacct for accounting, HR software, and payroll. By the time Martus came up for budgeting, her instinct was to pump the brakes.

"In my brain, it was going: no, Susan, you don't want to learn the software, you just don't."

At previous organizations, Susan built and maintained budget processes entirely in Excel by creating individual spreadsheets for each department, distributing them manually, collecting them back, and consolidating everything into a single master file by hand. It was time-consuming under the best circumstances, and fragile by design. Locked cells, broken formulas, and the absence of a true undo function meant that a single error could mean hours of cleanup. She knew how much work a budgeting system could be, and she was hesitant to try a new process in the midst of everything else she was learning.

The Solution

What changed Susan's mind wasn't a sales pitch but the onboarding experience itself. She scheduled training with Martus Customer Success representative Glen Strack, and over three one-hour sessions, her skepticism gave way to clarity and confidence.

Instead of a cumbersome system, Susan found a solution that addressed the exact friction she’d experienced in Excel without requiring her to learn a new way of working.

Key features in Martus that stood out included:

• Spreadsheet-familiar interface that felt approachable to staff without a finance background, reducing the learning curve for department heads
• Bi-directional sync with Sage Intacct, eliminating the manual transfer of data between budgeting and financial systems she'd dealt with before
• Role-based access control, allowing Susan to distribute budget ownership to individual departments without exposing the full organizational file
• Editable, forgiving workflows that include audit trails and undo options so mistakes are easily tracked and corrected

The Result

Today, Susan is one of Martus’ biggest advocates.

Martus’ integration with Sage Intacct removed a persistent manual step. Department heads are navigating the budget process with growing confidence, and new leaders onboard easily.

For other finance leaders who are weighing whether the transition is worth the disruption, Susan has this advice:

"Take the leap. It's worth the time and effort you put in to learn it and train your staff."