Meet Kristen Coghlan

Kristen Coghlan is a consultant for Trintech’s Professional Services team, specializing in Cadency Match implementations and has been with the company for just over five years. Kristen lives in Starkville, MS, where she grew up. She’s an avid Mississippi State fan and got her undergraduate and graduate degrees there. She lives with her sister, two labs, and one Australian shepherd.

Michael: Congratulations on being selected for the Trintecher Spotlight for March! Can you tell us a bit about your professional background?

Kristen: Thank you! This is very exciting. Before I came to Trintech, I worked as an accounting manager for an operational accounting team for eight years. Then, a friend of mine recommended that I make a change. I’ve really enjoyed it here.

Michael: What do you like most about your job here?

Kristen: I love the travel I’ve had the opportunity to experience with this job, especially international travel. And I really like working with new customers. I understand exactly where they are. When I worked in an accounting office, I didn’t use any Trintech solutions; we did all our work manually. So, I know how much our solutions will help our customers. I still remember how amazed I was when I first saw what it could do. The automation that we provide is a real game-changer.

Michael: Do you have a favorite place that you’ve traveled to?

Kristen: Yes, absolutely – Costa Rica. I love it there. The first time I went, I was in a study abroad program in college. I fell in love with it then. Then, one of my first clients, after I joined Trintech, was located there and I got to go back. It was a pretty long engagement, so I got to spend a lot of time there.

Michael: Costa Rica is beautiful. What was your first job?

Kristen: My first job was seasonal work at a local gift shop. I played a lot of sports in high school, so I didn’t have a lot of time to work. So, I just worked on holidays. My job was to fill balloons with helium. I would spend all day blowing up balloons. Another job I had – well, I didn’t get paid – my dad signed me up for it. On football Saturdays, I would go stuff hot dogs in the wrappers before the games. Needless to say, I’m not a fan of hot dogs.

Michael: You’ve done a lot of work with Cadency Match (Match) and T-Recs. We’ve introduced a lot of changes in both of these solutions recently, can you tell us a bit about how you’ve seen these changes positively impact our customers?

Kristen: The matching capabilities of T-Recs are amazing. Integrating these capabilities into Match will be a huge benefit for our clients. I love implementing Match with new customers. They bring me their biggest challenges, talking about how they don’t think we’ll be able to include a particular account in our software because it’s so complex. Then I show them we can. I’ve had it happen time after time, but it’s true. We can handle anything they bring to us. The integration is seamless, it is easily customizable, there are no volume limitations, and it can handle a wide range of customer-specific scenarios.

For our T-Recs customers, we’re now taking the best of Cadency Certification to them–with the ease of use of its interface and its workflow–they will get these new benefits along with the matching and exception item processing capabilities they’re used to.

And the best part is, we’re just going to continue to grow and get better from here for all of our customers.

Michael: I agree. I think this is just the beginning of something really great for our customers. What are your interests outside of work?

Kristen: I really enjoy playing sports — softball, basketball and tennis. I love playing with my dogs, too. I also served on the board for the Cotton District Arts Festival here in Starkville for the last seven years mostly helping to coordinate the annual 5K race.

Michael: Sounds like you have a lot going on! What changes have you seen in our industry since you joined Trintech?

Kristen: Technology and specifically the introduction of automation. I’m seeing more and more of this at our client sites. The larger clients now have their own automation teams or have internal RPA (robotic process automation) projects.

Michael: I think we’ll continue to see more and more of that sort of thing. One last question, then. What bit of advice would you give your younger self?

Kristen: Looking back on how much I stressed out about a test or a class. I tell my niece, don’t worry so much about having a bad day with a test, there’s time to make it up. Don’t sweat the small stuff and try to have fun.

Michael: Sounds good. Thanks so much for talking with me today.

Kristen: It was my pleasure!