KRTA Pro’s Ease of Use Sparks New Opportunities

Every year employees at Coles-Moultrie Electric Cooperative in Mattoon, Illinois, perform an annual review of its Key Ratio Trend Analysis (KRTA) results.

“We used the old KRTA data to look at a small snapshot of strengths and weaknesses and compare ourselves to other cooperatives within different peer groups,” Coles-Moultrie EC President and CEO Amy Borntrager said. “This was a routine practice that we presented to our board each year.”

This year was different. Borntrager invited CFC Regional Vice President Brian Stagen to present to the board using KRTA Pro, which launched with the release of 2022 KRTA results earlier this summer.

“I was hopeful the dynamic graphing ability of the ratios would depict clearer historical trends to our board of directors,” Borntrager explained. “I expected KRTA Pro would also not be as mundane as reviewing the standard ratios we reviewed annually. I was hopeful the new tool would make the ratios more understandable.” 

Borntrager and Stagen used KRTA Pro to review the cooperative’s past 20 years of KRTA results, reviewed its initiatives from the strategic plan that CFC helped facilitate in 2021 and then presented its 10-year financial forecast using the CFC Compass model. 

“KRTA Pro makes it easier, from a management perspective, to pull up these ratios and quickly compare them to the desired peer groups,” Borntrager said. “It made it so much easier for the board of directors to understand. KRTA Pro will help new board members have a better understanding of the history of their cooperative business.”

At the end of the day, Borntrager said, “Our employees couldn’t do their jobs the way we do them without the help of CFC and the value-added products they provide. I was the previous CFO for 15 years and utilized CFC’s Budget Pro, Compass and Strategic Facilitation Services.”