2026 ValleyStar Credit Union Team

The Challenge

ValleyStar Credit Union's audit review process was too manual and time-consuming, taking employee time away from other valuable work. Answering a single audit request required staff to locate, organize, and validate check payment data by hand, and inconsistent manual entry compounded the problem: one return reason — a check that was altered or fictitious — appeared in the source system as at least eight different variations. Guided by a mission of employees first, members benefit, the credit union needed an automated review process that reduced the potential for errors while enhancing convenience and service quality.

The Solution

The student team worked through a five-stage method of data collection, data standardization, data automation, dashboard creation, and technical documentation. After mapping ValleyStar's existing audit reporting process and data sources, the team applied SQL case logic and transformation processes to standardize existing entries, and worked alongside ValleyStar staff to establish a standardized data entry procedure for tellers so reporting accuracy would improve going forward. Reporting logic that had initially been combined into a single stored procedure created aggregation and duplication issues, so the team separated it by use case into three distinct datasets.

On that foundation the team built a series of Power BI dashboards covering the check payment channel and styled to match ValleyStar's existing data ecosystem. The dashboards deliver the two capabilities leadership asked for — quick data extraction so audit requests can be answered rapidly, and mapping of historical trends for future strategy — while also supporting anomaly detection, letting senior leaders spot an outlier in a chart and decide whether it warrants investigation.

The Impact

Automating retrieval work that had been done by hand saves the data team 23 hours per week, or 1,104 hours across 48 weeks, plus another 142 labor hours for tellers, for 1,246 hours saved annually. Beyond the hours, the solution increases accuracy and confidence in the system, lets employees focus on more valuable analytical tasks, and improves employee satisfaction. The team recommended that ValleyStar automate data entry processes wherever possible and replicate the solution across all payment channels, extending work that embodies the credit union's employees first, members benefit mission.