BankBI automates the monthly credit union board pack, building automated PDF reports and dashboards from the same core banking and general ledger data your finance team uses every day, with budgeting and forecasting in the same platform.
Planning suites such as Plansmith, Jack Henry’s Financial Performance Suite, Empyrean, and Vena add board reporting to budgets and rate risk; Callahan & Associates supplies peer comparisons; and board portals such as BoardEffect deliver the finished pack to directors.
In many credit unions, the Manager of Finance or Controller builds the board pack by hand each month, copying figures from the core banking system (members’ loans and deposits) and the general ledger (the accounting record) into Excel. The work can depend on one person, and the pack your chief financial officer (CFO) presents takes days to compile. Each type of software fixes a different part of that problem:
- The pack is rebuilt by hand every month: a daily reporting platform loads core and general ledger data every day and produces statements, dashboards, and board reports from it.
- The budget is the hard part: a planning suite builds the budget and forecast, often linked to asset and liability management (ALM), which tracks interest rate and liquidity risk.
- The team wants to stay in Excel: planning inside Excel keeps the spreadsheet as the interface, with a central model behind it.
- The board wants to compare with similar credit unions: a peer data provider works from the quarterly Call Report data credit unions file with the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).
- Directors need one place to read the pack: a board portal holds board materials, meetings, and decisions. It delivers the pack; it doesn’t build the figures.
This guide compares seven options on five points:
- Where the figures come from and how they’re checked
- How the pack is produced: PDF, dashboards, or both
- Tailoring for board members and committees
- Trends and detail behind the totals
- Planning beside the actuals
Board Reporting Software for Credit Unions Compared
The table sets out each option and the kind of credit union board reporting it suits.
| Provider and type | Ideal for |
|---|---|
| BankBI, reporting and planning platform | Board pack, daily reports, budgeting, and profitability from core and general ledger data |
| Plansmith, budgeting and ALM software | Budgets, forecasts, rate risk, and board reporting in Compass |
| Jack Henry Financial Performance Suite, planning and risk suite | Forecasting, financial reporting, ALM, and a daily dashboard |
| Empyrean, planning and risk platform | Budgets kept in sync with ALM, plus outsourced ALM |
| Vena, planning inside Excel | Excel-based budgets with board and management presentations |
| Callahan & Associates, peer data provider | Call Report peer comparisons for board discussions |
| BoardEffect, board portal | Board materials, meetings, and decisions in one portal |
In short: reporting platforms build the pack from daily data, planning suites focus on the budget and rate risk, peer data adds comparisons, and board portals deliver the finished pack.
How We Compared These Board Reporting Tools
- Criteria: where the figures come from and how they’re checked, how the pack is produced, tailoring, trends and detail, and planning.
- Method: a review of public sources, mainly each provider’s own website. We didn’t test any product ourselves, and we give no scores or rankings.
- Date: November 2026. Features change, so check each vendor’s current information.
- Sources: each provider’s facts come from the page linked in its entry. Director duties come from 12 CFR 701.4 in the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, and Call Report facts from the NCUA’s Call Report data page, both checked November 2026.
The Seven Board Reporting Tools for Credit Unions
1. BankBI
BankBI automates the monthly board pack for credit unions, building it from the same core banking and general ledger data your finance team uses every day. Its automated PDF reports give your board oversight of monthly performance, and the same figures feed daily dashboards for management.
BankBI starts from the fact that board members need different levels of detail: some want an at-a-glance view, others want depth on each portfolio. Its team listens to how your board works and designs the pack around it.
- Automated board pack: monthly PDF reports built from the figures finance uses, designed around what your board asks for.
- Daily statements on any device: a daily balance sheet and income statement, and a dashboard of key performance indicators (KPIs), readable on a tablet or phone.
- KPI Tree Analysis: measure any KPI, financial ratio, or statement line, and drill into the statements to see why it moved.
- Daily reconciliation: a daily report compares general ledger balances with core banking data to identify potential differences.
- Planning in the same platform: Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting builds annual budgets, rolling forecasts, and multi-year plans next to the reporting.
- Profitability after funding costs: Profit Analyzer, BankBI’s funds transfer pricing application, assigns funding costs and fee income across products, branches, and segments, so profitability shows after funding.
Data arrives every day through pre-built connections, set up for each system:
- Symitar: standard PowerOn scripts extract general ledger, member, loan, and deposit data.
- Corelation KeyStone: an extract co-developed by BankBI and Corelation, used by Yolo Federal Credit Union and IH Credit Union.
- Fiserv DNA: a scheduled daily DNA query, with no dedicated connection to the core.
- Other systems: Fiserv Premier and the PhoenixWorx Phoenix core banking system, with Fiserv Prologue Financials and Financial Accounting Suite (FAS) among the general ledgers. If your core isn’t listed, BankBI asks you to get in touch.
BankBI’s implementation team does the setup through a one-off data mapping in its Integrations Hub, and your team confirms the reconciled results. In BankBI’s words, core banking systems weren’t designed to be business performance reporting systems. BankBI reports on that data as a cloud service, with no upfront investment in infrastructure.
Ideal Credit Union revamped its 30-page monthly board pack with BankBI. Its Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Financial Officer described the goal: “What we really wanted to do was move away from Excel-based reporting and move instead to something more automated.”
2. Plansmith
Plansmith sells budgeting, forecasting, and reporting software to community banks and credit unions. Its Compass software automates budgeting, forecasting, and reporting, and Plansmith has combined budgeting and ALM into one module.
The features it lists for Compass include:
- Interfaces with core systems
- Budget and forecast modeling
- Quick, accurate board reporting
For a credit union whose board discussion centers on the budget and interest rate risk, Compass keeps the plan, rate risk, and the board reports in one model.
3. Jack Henry Financial Performance Suite
Jack Henry’s Financial Performance Suite (FPS) is software that helps banks and credit unions manage and analyze financial data. It brings together:
- Forecasting and Financial Reporting, for budgeting and balance sheet forecasting
- Asset Liability Management, for interest rate, market, and liquidity risk
- A Daily Dashboard, refreshed each night from multiple core sources so metrics and monthly reports stay current
- Profitability reporting by branch, department, and region
- Solutions for current expected credit loss (CECL), the accounting standard for loan loss reserves
Jack Henry states that FPS works with all core vendors and runs on a cloud-based platform, so a credit union can use it whoever provides its core.
4. Empyrean
Empyrean builds cloud-based budgeting, ALM, CECL, and profitability software for community banks and credit unions. Its Budgeting and Planning module replaces the spreadsheet process, compares budget, forecast, and actuals with variance analysis, and keeps budget assumptions in sync with ALM, so rate and scenario results flow back into the plan.
Empyrean describes the platform as built for the finance team to own and run. For credit unions without staff for ALM, its outsourced service runs balance sheet risk on Empyrean’s modeling engine and delivers reporting for the asset and liability committee (ALCO).
5. Vena
Vena offers financial planning and analysis software for banks and credit unions, with Excel as the interface. It lets a finance team:
- Collect branch and department budgets through governed Excel templates
- Connect ALM assumptions with budgeting and forecasting to test rate scenarios
- Create board and management presentations from connected financial data
- Track net interest margin and branch profitability in Power BI dashboards
Vena supports integration with financial and core banking systems, so planning, budgeting, and reporting draw on the same data.
6. Callahan & Associates
Callahan & Associates provides performance measurement and peer comparison for credit unions. Its Peer Suite is built on Call Report data, including the NCUA 5300 Call Report, with built-in and custom peer groups and a Build A Merger tool.
A free plan, CU Profiles, gives five years of data with Excel, print, and PDF exports. The paid Peer Suite covers 20 years, adds PowerPoint exports and automated email delivery, and is positioned for strategic planning, board discussions, and ongoing performance monitoring.
7. BoardEffect
BoardEffect is board governance software built for credit union boards. It centralizes board materials, meetings, and decisions in one secure platform, with encryption for sensitive data and access for directors at any time.
A board portal does a different job from reporting software: it organizes and delivers the pack that finance prepares. Credit unions use one alongside the tool that builds the figures.
What to Look for in Board Reporting Software for a Credit Union
Daily Data from Your Core and General Ledger, Reconciled
An automated PDF only saves work if the data behind it arrives without anyone keying it in. Ask each vendor whether the software also collects the data from your core banking system and general ledger, how often it refreshes, and how the two are reconciled. The common routes are:
- A script or query in your core: for Symitar, BankBI uses standard PowerOn scripts; for Fiserv DNA, a scheduled daily query.
- An extract built with the core vendor: for Corelation KeyStone, BankBI uses an extract developed with Corelation.
- A file someone exports by hand: this keeps a person in the monthly process.
The standard to ask for is daily data with a reconciliation step. BankBI produces a daily reconciliation report of general ledger balances and core banking data, and with Fiserv Prologue and FAS it keeps your general ledger codes, so figures reconcile back to the general ledger. Its integrations page lists the systems it connects to today.
A Pack Designed Around What Your Board Asks For
Boards differ. Some directors want an at-a-glance view, others want detail on each loan and deposit portfolio, and committees such as ALCO or a finance committee need their own focus.
Format matters too. A PDF pack gives every director the same fixed record of the month, while dashboards let directors and managers explore the figures between meetings. You can have both, as long as both come from the same figures.
- What BankBI does: it designs the pack around your board after understanding its needs, and its automated PDF reports and dashboards draw on the same daily data.
- What to ask any vendor: whether a committee version comes from the same pack and data, or is a separate document someone keeps up to date.
Trends and Detail Behind the Totals
A pack that shows only this month’s totals leaves directors asking whether a figure is good or bad. Trends, budget comparisons, and drill-down answer that:
- Trends: BankBI tracks the yield on earning assets, interest income yield, and net interest margin over twelve months.
- Drill-down: KPI Tree Analysis shows the movements behind a ratio or statement line.
- Branch and product detail: daily branch balance sheets and income statements, branch and loan officer dashboards, and Profit Analyzer for profitability by product and branch.
- Budget beside actuals: Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting sits in the same platform, with actuals uploaded from your general ledger.
- Peer comparison: BankBI’s free peer analysis builds a quarterly PDF results pack from NCUA Call Report data.
SRP Federal Credit Union built its 2026 budget in Planning, Budgeting & Forecasting and produced board-ready outputs its finance committee could question closely, then extended the budget into a five-year plan in the same model. When you assess any vendor, ask for a sample page to check whether the PDF carries charts or only tables.
Delivering the Pack to Directors
Getting the finished pack to directors securely is a separate job. A board portal such as BoardEffect holds board materials, meetings, and decisions in one place, with secure access for each director.
A board portal works alongside a reporting platform: BankBI builds the financial pages, and the portal is where directors read them. Ask each vendor how access for directors and committee members is set up and priced.
How to Choose the Right Board Reporting Software for a Credit Union
Step 1: Take Stock of Your Current Board Pack
Start with the pack you produce today. Before you speak to vendors, write down:
- How many pages it runs to, and which pages change each month
- Which system each figure comes from: the core, the general ledger, or a spreadsheet
- Who builds it, and what happens when that person is away
- Which pages the board and committees ask about most
The answers become your brief. The pages that take longest to build are the first ones to automate.
Step 2: Decide What Your Board Reads and How
Agree with your CFO what the board should receive: a PDF pack, interactive dashboards, or both. Then count the people who need access, including board members, committee members, and management, and ask each vendor how access is set up for that number.
Step 3: Check the Connection to Your Core and General Ledger
Name your core banking system and general ledger, and ask each vendor whether it connects to them today, how often data refreshes, and who maintains the connection. Bring your information technology (IT) lead in at this step.
BankBI lists Symitar, Corelation KeyStone, Fiserv DNA, Fiserv Premier, and the PhoenixWorx Phoenix core banking system among its core banking systems.
Step 4: Rebuild a Month of Your Own Pack Before You Commit
A demo on sample data shows the software; a trial on your own data shows your pack. Ask each vendor to rebuild one month of your board pack from your own core and general ledger data, in your own terms.
Ideal Credit Union took this route: it trialed BankBI on about two months of its own data, and its board and ALCO then approved the move. With BankBI, the implementation team handles the data mapping, and your team confirms the reconciled results.
Step 5: When to Choose a Platform That Builds the Pack from Daily Core and General Ledger Data
If your pack is rebuilt by hand each month and your board wants trends and the budget beside the actuals, choose a platform that loads core and general ledger data daily and builds the pack from it, with planning in the same place.
Yolo Federal Credit Union and IH Credit Union, for example, now get daily financial and operational insights in BankBI from their Corelation KeyStone data. To see how your own pack would work, book a consultation with BankBI.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Best Board Reporting Software for Credit Unions?
BankBI fits credit unions that want the monthly board pack built automatically from daily core and general ledger data, with budgeting in the same platform. For budgeting tied to interest rate risk, Plansmith, Jack Henry’s Financial Performance Suite, and Empyrean fit; Vena keeps planning in Excel; Callahan & Associates adds peer comparisons; and a board portal such as BoardEffect delivers the pack to directors.
Who Provides Automated Month-End PDF Board Packs for Credit Unions?
BankBI provides automated monthly PDF reports that give your board oversight of the credit union’s performance, built from the same daily core and general ledger data as its dashboards. The pack is designed around your board, and a daily reconciliation report compares general ledger balances with core data. BankBI’s implementation team sets up the data mapping, so your finance team doesn’t build the data feed.
Should the Board Get a PDF Pack, Interactive Dashboards, or Both?
Both have a place. A PDF pack gives every director the same fixed record of the month, while dashboards let directors and managers explore trends and detail between meetings. What matters is that both come from the same figures. BankBI produces automated PDF reports and daily dashboards from one set of data, and lets you create interactive performance trend presentations during management meetings.
Can the Board Pack Be Tailored to Different Board Members and Committees?
It should be. Directors need different levels of detail, from an at-a-glance view to depth on each portfolio, and committees such as ALCO or a finance committee need their own focus. BankBI designs the pack around your board after understanding its needs. For committee versions, ask any vendor whether they come from the same pack and data, or are separate documents someone keeps up to date.
Does Board Reporting Software Help a Credit Union Meet NCUA Governance Expectations?
Software doesn’t meet a governance duty on its own. For federal credit unions, the NCUA’s rule at 12 CFR 701.4 requires each director to have a working familiarity with basic finance and accounting, including reading and understanding the balance sheet and income statement, and to ask management substantive questions. A clear monthly pack with trends supports that duty; state-chartered credit unions should also check their state’s rules.
Can the PDF Pack Be Generated Automatically on a Set Day Each Month?
Ask each vendor when the monthly pack is produced, whether you can set the day, and what happens if month-end entries are still being posted. The pack is only as final as the general ledger behind it, so agree the timing with your month-end close calendar. BankBI automates monthly PDF reports from data it loads every day; confirm the delivery day with BankBI for your close calendar.
Making the Right Board Reporting Choice for Your Credit Union
If your board pack is built by hand each month and your board wants trends, detail, and the budget beside the actuals, BankBI gives your finance team the pack, daily statements, and planning from the same core and general ledger data.
Every option in this guide helps a board see the credit union’s performance. The difference is the job each one takes on:
- Daily reporting platforms build the pack and dashboards from data loaded every day.
- Planning suites focus on the budget and rate risk: choose one when those drive the board discussion.
- Planning inside Excel keeps the spreadsheet: choose it when your team wants to stay in Excel.
- Peer data providers compare you with similar credit unions on Call Report data.
Some jobs sit alongside BankBI rather than in place of it. A board portal delivers the finished pack to directors, and a data warehouse can feed BankBI while serving analysts across the credit union.
Why BankBI Is the Right Choice for Credit Union Board Reporting
BankBI is the right choice for credit unions that want an automated monthly board pack built from the same figures finance uses every day.
- An automated board pack: monthly PDF reports designed around what your board asks for.
- Daily data from your core: pre-built connections for Symitar, Corelation KeyStone, Fiserv DNA, CBX, CU*BASE, and other named systems.
- A daily check: a reconciliation report compares general ledger balances with core banking data.
- Trends and detail: twelve-month trends, KPI Tree Analysis, branch reporting, and Profit Analyzer.
- Planning in the same platform: budgets, rolling forecasts, and multi-year plans next to the actuals.
For your CFO, the board pack, daily statements, and budget all come from one set of core and general ledger figures, so the board sees the numbers finance works with. And because BankBI’s implementation team handles the data mapping, your finance team gets automated board reporting without building it.
To see your own board pack in BankBI, book a consultation with BankBI.
