The Problem
Money in Limbo
InVia Collective exists to support the local church, grounded in a simple conviction: every ministry matters. When a church finds itself in transition or facing a sudden staffing need, InVia’s nationwide Collective of worship leaders, music directors, pastors, and ministry professionals steps in so that weekend services continue smoothly and reliably, from one-off coverage to longer interim seasons of leadership. Co-founded by Cindy and Marcel Arocha, worship pastors who have served with internationally recognized ministries, the nonprofit has spent the years since its 2020 founding helping churches keep their focus on ministry rather than logistics.
Behind that work runs a steady rhythm of payments: invoicing church partners and paying the leaders InVia places, week in and week out. As CEO and executive director, Cindy oversees those operations directly, and she had always kept billing intentionally simple, favoring a clean send-an-invoice, pay-a-contractor workflow over heavier accounting software.
For about five years, that workflow ran on Wingspan. As one of the platform’s earliest customers, InVia had built its entire billing infrastructure around it: invoicing partners, paying contractors, and filing 1099s, all in one place, at a price a growing nonprofit could absorb. Then Wingspan shifted its focus toward larger corporate clients. Personal support gave way to automated service, and a 2024 banking migration introduced a more serious problem. Church partners would pay their invoices, but the money was not reaching InVia.
There was this banking migration they did, and it took our invoices, our churches, our partners had paid, and then did not release the funds to us. That’s huge for a growing organization. It messed up our cash flow.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
The holds stretched from a couple of weeks to, at times, considerably longer. Because the invoices had already been paid, the delays disrupted cash flow InVia had every reason to count on. Freeing the money meant hours each week flagging discrepancies, like a $7,000 invoice that had paid out only $70. Meanwhile, a reconfigured account pushed InVia’s cost from a few hundred dollars a year up to $250 a month.
It was charging more for less. We can see an invoice has been paid, but it’s just not released to us, so why do I also have to pay you each month? For us, it felt like a terrible deal.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
The Solution
Reliable by Design
In her own published review, Cindy is unequivocal about the switch.
Nickel has been a game changer for our staffing agency. Nickel saved the day and has been affordable, incredibly easy to use, and never once a headache. Their system is intuitive, robust, and easy for all.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
After a brief, unsuccessful run with another processor that was absorbed by Square and wound down almost as soon as InVia signed on, Cindy knew exactly what she needed. The new platform had to preserve the same pricing her church partners were used to: free ACH, 2.9% on cards, and the option to pass those fees along, so the change would be seamless for the communities InVia serves. And it had to be something the team could set up quickly, without seminars or a dedicated bookkeeper.
Nickel checked every box.
I think we set up Nickel in an afternoon. I had the option to do a Zoom and all these things, but I didn’t need to. It was so intuitive.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
Most importantly, none of the old problems followed her. Deposits were reliable and fast, the timing was predictable, and the funds simply showed up when they were supposed to. After a stretch of unpredictable timing, watching money land quickly and dependably was, in Cindy’s words, “just genius.”
Now Nickel fits the natural rhythm of InVia’s work. The team invoices contracted churches at the end of each month for the month ahead, but because they serve churches in transition, an invoice can go out any day of the week. “Thursdays are always a weird day,” Cindy says, describing the calls that come in when a church needs coverage by Sunday. For one-off engagements like a guest coach or a fill-in musician, she uses Nickel’s bill feature to pay people directly, without needing to build a full payroll profile for someone who does not need a 1099.
I love that I don’t have to put all of that into another system, and it’s still all above board. That’s the correct way of doing things.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
When a partner needs a payment authorization form, Cindy downloads it in a click, and the Help Center’s resources make it easy to give any partner confidence in how payments work. And on the occasion a question comes up, Nickel’s team has been quick and personal in a way her previous platform no longer was.
The payoff shows up in time and money. Easy, repeatable invoicing has cut 10 to 15 hours of work from Cindy’s month. Predictable deposits keep cash flow steady. And where the old processor’s fees had climbed to $250 a month, InVia now runs on Nickel’s free Core plan at $0 a month, real savings for a nonprofit where every dollar has to be strategic. As she sums it up in her review, Nickel “saves us money in fees for payment processing, and saves us time on the A/R and A/P sides of things.” As InVia continues their record growth, Cindy is already looking at how much more of her toolset she can bring into Nickel.
But what has earned Cindy’s trust runs deeper than the numbers. It is working with a company that shares her values and works to empower more American organizations to succeed. The relationship has come to feel, in her words, like “just a wonderful partnership,” and it is one both sides plan to keep.
We are super happy to be using Nickel and hope to be with them for years to come.
Cindy Arocha, CEO & Executive Director
