Monthly Archives

December 2024

Dec 26
0

Five Considerations to Help You Choose the Best Accounting Software for Your Organization

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments
person using financial software on a tablet and laptop

Is your current accounting and financial software platform helping you achieve your goals or hindering progress?

If you’ve decided that it’s time to invest in new nonprofit accounting software, this buyer’s guide is for you. Nonprofit software has changed rapidly over the years. While basic accounting software still contains familiar and essential elements like a general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and invoicing capabilities, new accounting platforms offer AI-enabled assistance that improves efficiency and automates routine processes. Integration with other platforms can also be easier, depending on the software vendor.

Let’s look at five questions to ask as you begin exploring nonprofit accounting software. With so many platforms available, you’ll want to narrow down the list before reviewing demos and meeting with vendors and consultants. These questions will help you focus on specific requirements for your organization’s needs—the “must haves” for your new accounting system.

Software Delivery Models

Before we dig into the five questions to ask, it’s important to understand the main software delivery models available today. These models include:

  • On-premises software, based on the client/server model, which is installed on a Windows-based computer network in your office.
  • Hosted software, which runs on-premises software in a third-party data center and adds a layer for online delivery.
  • Cloud software, or Software as a Service (SaaS), is developed to run online.

Each model has pros and cons to it. On-premises and hosted software tends to be (on average) more expensive to run over time since it requires dedicated hardware and personnel to monitor and maintain it. It also limits access to personnel located in the same office as the software; remote access isn’t available. Cloud software provides remote access, and updates are typically handled by the software vendor, for example.

Based on your answers to the following questions, you’ll know more about which type of software is right for you.

Five Considerations When Choosing Accounting Software

  1. Does my team need remote access? Cloud software allows remote access. This enables employees to work remotely. The opportunity for remote work may also improve your ability to hire skilled people from a wider geographic area; you aren’t limited to people who can commute to your location. If you offer only location-based services and never need remote access, you can choose any type of software. If remote access is essential to you, cloud platforms are the right way to go.
  2. Does my financial system need to integrate with other platforms? Cloud platforms can be more easily integrated with other platforms through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). This leads to easier data sharing, better visibility, and enhanced productivity.
  3. Do users need real-time access to data? Real-time access can be more easily achieved through an integrated, cloud-based approach. Allowing users self-service access also improves visibility and helps team members use financial data as part of their decision-making process.
  4. Do we need to improve efficiency? Cloud accounting platforms can enhance your organization’s operational efficiency by streamlining traditional finance processes like consolidations and closings. Additionally, it allows you to automate tasks such as procurement, allocations, grant management, and compliance reporting, freeing up resources for more value-added activities. For nonprofits, the cloud helps avoid the drawbacks of “management by spreadsheet” and the limitations of single-user systems like desktop accounting software.
  5. Have we considered how to scale for growth? If your organization foresees significant changes in headcount, either adding staff or cutting back, cloud licenses tend to be more flexible, allowing you to increase or decrease licenses with ease and limited expense.

Hands-On Experience

Once you’ve thought about the answers to these questions, you’ll know whether you should explore cloud-only accounting software or consider on-premises platforms too.

Exploring demos and videos online is the best way to learn about the various accounting platforms available. Then, it’s time to engage internal stakeholders in the process of requirements gathering and all the steps needed to hone in on the right software. Fortunately, today’s market offers a wealth of choices for nonprofits. The trick is matching the best platform to your organization’s needs. An experienced consultant can help.

Welter Consulting


Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact us for more information.

Dec 19
0

The Three Cornerstones of Financial Planning and Analysis

By | Accounting, Nonprofit | No Comments
Person giving presentation of financial software on large monitor with observers at table

Financial planning and analysis (FP & A), like many finance disciplines, has undergone significant changes with the increasing use of AI and various software platforms to support data analysis and communications. As CFOs continue to lead FP&A activities, along with their teams dedicated to research, analysis, and planning, understanding the importance of the FP&A role and including the “three cornerstones” of FP&A strategy into the process is an important step to maximize its role in overall financial planning.

Financial Planning and Analysis – an Important Strategic Opportunity

The FP&A process offers CFOs an excellent opportunity to work with cross-functional teams within an organization, using financial data to analyze past performance of activities and programs and to incorporate such data into strategic planning.

The data analyzed throughout the FP&A process can be used in multiple ways. For example, when examining the data, trends may appear that lead to exploring new opportunities. Because FP&A planning includes data from multiple touchpoints throughout the organization, such as operations, marketing, donor relations, and more, it can help leaders see the big picture and refine their plans based on data.

The data accessed through the FP&A process should be both collaborative and actionable. Thankfully, with modern AI-enabled platforms, most finance teams achieve both goals with their data.

The Three Cornerstones of FP&A

Numerous leaders cited in an online CFO article shared their vision for the “three pillars” of smart FP&A planning. We like to call them “cornerstones” because they serve as the foundation of good financial planning. The cornerstones include:

  1. Technology-enabled planning: Using the right software, incorporating AI/GenAI for data analysis, and ensuring plentiful cross-functional data are all part of technology-enabled financial planning and analysis. With these tools, teams can perform advanced analysis without it becoming a time-consuming activity.
  2. People power: After using software platforms to perform data analysis, people should take time to review them and use the information accordingly. It’s the human touch—the inherent creativity, knowledge, and awareness that people bring to the financial planning process—as well as cross-functional teamwork that makes it work best.
  3. Leadership: The last cornerstone is leadership. CFOs can take the technology-created inputs and human-generated insights and form them into actionable information for discussion. Then, based on the data analysis and team-driven insights, CFOs need to lead the discussion around the strategic plan. This empathetic, collaborative approach helps all departments get the most from the process.

Working with Data, Leading with Empathy

Financial planning begins with data. But data is just the beginning. Teamwork, planning, sharing, and collaborating on the final plans based on the data is the next step. For CFOs committed to excellence, leading the discussion that ensues with empathy and patience helps the organization benefit most from FP&A activities.

Welter Consulting

Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact us for more information.

Dec 17
0

Transforming Finance Teams with AI

By | Accounting, Nonprofit | No Comments
Finance Team meeting with software on computer monitor

AI use is now firmly entrenched in finance teams. In a recent KPMG report, 70% of companies surveyed indicated they currently use AI in reporting, and 100% expect to incorporate it shortly. This is a far cry from a few short years ago when many companies struggled to understand how AI might be used in finance and accounting. Now, it is ubiquitous in business, with most common accounting platforms incorporating some form of AI into their basic package.

However, some organizations also leverage stand-alone AI platforms. Using these platforms comes with certain risks you should be aware of and plan for accordingly. Ensuring that your team uses AI responsibly is a big but necessary task. It’s likely that your team is using it now, and it is important to put safeguards in place to ensure ethical, responsible, and compliant use.

The Biggest Benefit of AI in Financial Reporting

One of the interesting findings from the aforementioned KPMG report is where AI can make the greatest impact. According to Edward Moran, Managing Director of the Audit Innovation Group at KPMG, AI can fill lower-level talent gaps.

Many companies are finding the workload is increasing while the talent pool of newcomers to the accounting and finance profession is shrinking. New hires may not have the experience to fully understand how to prepare financial reports. AI can fill that talent gap. When used properly by newcomers to the profession, it can be used to prepare first drafts of reports, analyze data, and organize and sort data.

Human Oversight Is Essential With AI

AI is not “set it and forget it.” In other words, you can’t just input a query into an AI model, take the results, and run with them. AI makes mistakes. It “hallucinates” or outputs incorrect or garbled data, especially when outlier questions hit blind spots in its training data.

Seasoned financial professionals should review AI-generated output for mistakes, hallucinations, and corrections. Even if the information is correct, AI may not present it in the best light. For example, you may need to add data visualizations to help your audience understand financial data and its impact on the organization. Or you may choose to present it differently.

Putting AI Safeguards in Place to Protect Sensitive Data

Another important consideration is implementing “AI guardrails” or safeguards to protect sensitive data—that is, rules to govern its use among employees.

Many common AI tools, such as Microsoft Co-Pilot, ChatGPT, and so on, ingest the information shared in its chat window and add it to the system’s training data repository. While this may not be of concern if you’re using Co-Pilot to write the text of the company’s holiday greetings, it would be of great concern if an employee fed confidential information into the system and inadvertently exposed it to the public.

Creating rules and safeguards for your company to protect sensitive financial data, proprietary marketing and operational data, and other confidential company information is vitally important. Staff training should include acceptable AI use once you have established the guardrails and rules. People may need reminders that anything “fed” to the AI chat can be spit out later by a competitor!

Learn and Embrace New Technology

AI is just the latest technology to enter the financial profession. Somewhere in the past 100 years, calculators replaced pencil figures, and computers replaced hand-created ledgers. As technology changes, finance professionals should learn all they can about it and embrace what makes sense to enhance the efficiency of their teams.

Welter Consulting


Welter Consulting bridges people and technology together for effective solutions for nonprofit organizations. We offer software and services that can help you with your accounting needs. Please contact us for more information.