Accounting systems are not something that busy non-profit organisations change or replace often. However, as your organisation grows in size or complexity, it may reach a point where manual processes become a huge drain on productivity—and an obstacle to visibility. When you’re in the weeds performing manual tasks like data imports and exports, reconciliations, and anomaly investigation, it becomes an ongoing struggle to analyse critical financial and operating data. That’s when you know your organisation needs a modern non-profit accounting software solution that leverages new technology.

Is your current system holding you back? Take a few minutes now to evaluate your current non-profit accounting software needs by taking our quiz below. After taking the quiz, we invite you to download our handy software buyer’s checklist to help you evaluate non-profit accounting software vendors and ensure you get the modern features you need to improve efficiency and get data-driven insights faster.

 

1. Does your non-profit manage restricted grants and funds?   Yes / No

If your non-profit receives restricted funds or relies on grants to fund various operations, it’s important to understand and comply with any requirements associated with those funds. Plus, your major donors expect to receive reports from your organisation to track fund usage and measure impact. Good stewardship of funds requires transparency and accountability, creating a need for system-wide tracking and visibility across key segments or identifiers.

Sage Intacct provides instantly customisable dashboards that give you real-time operation and financial visibility by fund. Plus, you’ll have the ability to slice and dice your financial information any way you want, leverage operating dimensions to get a holistic view of performance and outcome measures, and report quickly and easily on key attributes whether it is a fund, grant, or program.

 

2. Do you have to perform manual calculations in external spreadsheets for revenue recognition?   Yes / No

Many non-profit organisations are still exporting sales data to Excel or manually completing billing worksheets in order to manage revenue recognition. That process is error-prone and takes significant time away from strategic activities. With Sage Intacct, non-profit finance leaders can automate revenue management and automatically calculate revenue recognition using real-time data from CRM and labour-tracking systems.

Sage Intacct allows you to decouple your fund invoicing schedule from revenue recognition, enabling you to efficiently and accurately manage complex schedules.

 

3. Does your non-profit have multiple entities or multiple locations?   Yes / No

If your organisation has multiple legal entities or locations, performing consolidations quickly isn’t easy—and the time spent performing these tasks manually often snowballs into lengthy close times. That’s why organisations need non-profit accounting software equipped to handle the complexities of multi-entity management by allowing you to drill down into detailed consolidating entries; create multiple levels in your organisation hierarchy; and choose consistent or different workflows, charts of accounts, period definitions, and lists across your multiple entries. Sage Intacct provides the flexibility to maintain multiple ledgers that can process transactions independently without degrading GL performance.

 

4. Does your accounting software provide multiple operating dimensions for all transactions to provide in-depth, real-time financial insight?   Yes / No

Non-profits need timely, insightful financial reporting to make mission-critical decisions to propel their mission forward. That’s what makes spreadsheet-based reporting so frustrating. It’s time-consuming and doesn’t always offer the level of detail you need to see a clear picture of financial performance.

Sage Intacct emboldens non-profit finance leaders to use real-time dynamic reports and dashboards that automatically combine operating dimensions with financial data so you can analyse results for each operating unit, location, project, funder, and more. Plus, you’ll have drill down capabilities for visibility and insight into the numbers and flexible reporting tools that help you easily manage changing budget and compliance requirements.

 

5. Does your non-profit organisation struggle with increasing IT costs and technology risks?   Yes / No

Older on-premises accounting systems are often expensive to own and lack the specialized functionality needed for your non-profit to meet its goals. Choosing a cloud-based non-profit accounting software solution changes all that. Cloud solutions are easy to use and more affordable since there is no IT infrastructure to maintain. You don’t need to perform software updates and cloud solutions are highly scalable to grow with your organisation.

 

6. Can staff access your system from anywhere, at any time?   Yes / No

A true cloud solution enables your staff to shift seamlessly from working at the office to working at home or any other location—while maintaining peace of mind that their data is safe and secure in the cloud. That kind of flexibility helps non-profits recruit and retain better talent. It also increases organisational agility in the event of unusual circumstances, such as a global pandemic or regional natural disaster.

 

7. Does your organisation leverage other best-in-class solutions to manage payroll, budgeting, and CRM?   Yes / No

When you’re busy trying to drive your mission forward, you need the flexibility to choose best-in-class solutions to manage different areas of your organisation—whether it’s payroll, donor management, budgeting, or CRM solutions like Salesforce. Sage Intacct offers convenient “point-and-click” integrations through our open API that don’t require IT skills. This means you can leverage key data from those third-party business applications to track metrics central to your operations and programs in one place.

 

8. Do your non-profit audits take too long and cost too much?   Yes / No

Costly audits are often the result of auditors having to search and dig to find the financial information they need to complete their work. Having a cloud-based non-profit accounting software can help you collaborate more effectively with your auditor. For example, you can provide Sage Intacct access to your auditor with read-only access to transaction details and self-service reports. This allows the auditor to be able to start working before your financial close and have the ability to drill down into details for clarification.

 

9. Is your non-profit accounting software designed for the unique needs of your non-profit?   Yes / No

Your non-profit organisation strives to strengthen stewardship, build influence, grow funding, and achieve mission success. It’s important to choose non-profit accounting software designed to support continuous improvement. Features such as role-based access, workflow customisations, and point-and-click API integrations help your organisation optimise efficiency based on your unique operational model.

 

10. Is your solution trusted by other non-profits and recognised for excellence?   Yes / No

In addition to having the right features for non-profits, it helps to choose a solution that’s already trusted by many other non-profits and recognised by industry leaders. An innovative leader in the cloud financial management and accounting space for more than two decades, Sage Intacct is the first and only AICPA preferred provider of financial management solutions. Plus, Sage Intacct consistently earns top ratings and reviews by customers from trusted independent sources like G2 and Trust Radius.

 

Conclusion

At a minimum, a modern accounting system for non-profits should automate and streamline core financial management functions such as Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Financial Close. But that really is the bare minimum. In fact, Sage Intacct has identified more than 40 must-have features non-profits need to successfully drive mission success.

Is your current non-profit accounting software holding you back? If you answered yes to any of the questions above, it’s time for your organisation to make the move to modern cloud non-profit accounting software. To help you evaluate non-profit accounting software vendors and ensure you get the modern features you need, we invite you to download the Non-profit Accounting Software Buyer’s Checklist.

 

The Akuna Solutions Team