Category

Accounting Software

Nov 25
0

Seven Reasons to Choose Cloud-Based Social Services Accounting Software for Your Nonprofit Organization

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments

Nonprofit organizations need flexible software that helps them do more with less. Cloud-based accounting software designed specifically for social services organizations offers capabilities that traditional systems simply can’t match. Here are seven great reasons why your nonprofit should consider making a switch to a cloud-based accounting system.

1. Customized Dashboards and Reporting Put Critical Information at Your Fingertips

Modern cloud-based accounting platforms allow you to build dashboards that reflect how your organization actually operates. You can create customized graphs and key performance indicators that track the metrics most important to your mission. Need quick access to approve invoices? You can add shortcuts directly to your dashboard. Want to communicate important updates to your team? You can post announcements right where everyone logs in to work.

These systems also support customized checklists for recurring processes like month-end close procedures, ensuring your team follows consistent workflows and nothing falls through the cracks. The ability to tailor your workspace means every user sees exactly what they need to see, when they need to see it.

2. Artificial Intelligence Streamlines Time-Consuming Tasks

Cloud-based platforms increasingly leverage artificial intelligence to eliminate manual data entry and reduce errors. Advanced AP automation can automatically capture invoice data, routing approvals to the right people without human intervention. Machine learning capabilities can identify unusual entries and outliers that might indicate errors or require additional scrutiny.

Bank reconciliation becomes faster and more accurate as the system learns your transaction patterns and automatically suggests matches. Search functionality powered by AI-enabled tools helps you find the information you need using natural language queries rather than memorizing report names or navigation paths. These intelligent features free your staff to focus on analysis and strategic decision-making rather than routine data processing.

3. Seamless Integrations Create a Unified Technology Ecosystem

One of the most powerful advantages of cloud-based accounting software is the ability to integrate with other specialized applications your nonprofit uses. Rather than forcing you to compromise on functionality, leading platforms like Sage Intacct maintain extensive integration marketplaces where you can find connections to fundraising systems, grant management tools, budgeting software, payroll providers, procurement platforms, and more.

These integrations are not simple import/export routines that require manual intervention. Instead, data flows automatically among systems, ensuring information stays synchronized across your entire technology stack. This approach allows you to select best-in-class software for each function your organization performs while maintaining a single source of truth for your financial data. Your fundraising team can work in their preferred CRM (Customer Relationship Management) while finance automatically receives the donation data needed for accurate accounting.

4. Dimensions Enable Multi-Faceted Financial Analysis

Social services organizations need to track financial information across multiple perspectives simultaneously. Cloud-based systems use dimensions, sometimes called segment reporting, to slice and dice your data without creating an unwieldy chart of accounts.

You can run table-driven reports that analyze key metrics by vendor, customer, employee, department, program, funding source, fund, or any other dimension relevant to your organization. Need to see all expenses related to a specific grant across multiple departments? Or track program outcomes against multiple funding sources? Dimensional reporting makes these complex analyses simple, giving program managers and board members the insights they need to make informed decisions about resource allocation and program effectiveness.

5. Sage Collaborate Brings Financial Conversations into Your Accounting System

Traditional accounting software forces you to use separate communication tools, such as email or messaging platforms, to discuss financial data. This approach disperses your institutional knowledge across multiple systems, making it difficult to maintain an audit trail of key financial discussions.

Sage Collaborate within Sage Intacct changes this paradigm by building collaboration directly into the accounting platform. Users can ask questions, share insights, and discuss financial information right where the data lives. You can attach notes to specific reports, creating context that travels with the financial information. Every conversation is tracked with a full audit trail embedded in the software.

This feature proves particularly valuable during audit season. When your auditors ask for proof that department managers reviewed their financial statements, you can point to documented conversations within the system itself. The entire review process becomes transparent and verifiable without requiring your team to save email chains or meeting notes separately.

6. Complete Drill-Down Capability Provides Transparency from Summary to Source

Cloud-based accounting platforms built for social services offer complete drill-down functionality in every report. When you see a number that raises questions, you can click through progressive layers of detail until you reach the original source transaction.

This transparency accelerates research, simplifies audit preparation, and builds confidence in your financial data. Program directors can investigate variances themselves without waiting for the finance team to pull transaction details. Board members can satisfy their curiosity about specific line items during meetings. Auditors can efficiently trace any amount back to supporting documentation.

The ability to drill down into any report eliminates the “opaque feeling” that sometimes accompanies financial data, fostering a culture of transparency and financial literacy throughout your organization.

7. True Cloud Architecture Delivers Accessibility and Reliability

Software labeled “cloud-based” does not always share the same underlying architecture. True cloud-based accounting platforms are built from the ground up to run entirely through web browsers, requiring no special software installations or remote desktop connections.

This architecture means your team can access the system from any device with an internet connection using just a web browser. Remote work becomes seamless. Mobile access is native rather than awkward. System updates happen automatically without disrupting your team’s workflow or requiring IT intervention.

True cloud platforms also benefit from the infrastructure investments of major cloud providers, delivering reliability, security, and disaster recovery capabilities that would be prohibitively expensive for individual organizations to implement. Your data is continuously backed up, and you can access your accounting system even if your physical office becomes unavailable.

Making the Transition

Moving to cloud-based accounting software represents a significant decision for any nonprofit, but the benefits extend far beyond simple automation. These platforms transform how your organization manages, analyzes, and communicates about financial information. They break down silos between departments, accelerate reporting cycles, and provide the transparency that stakeholders increasingly expect.

As your nonprofit grows and evolves, cloud-based accounting software grows with you, adapting to new programs, funding sources, and reporting requirements without requiring expensive customization or system replacements. The investment in modern, purpose-built accounting systems pays dividends in staff productivity, decision-making quality, and organizational effectiveness for years to come.

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.

Oct 28
0

AI Helps CPAs Save Time, Improve Efficiency

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now embedded into our daily lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined years ago. This includes the workplace. CPAs have discovered new and innovative uses for AI. While some of these applications require a bit more programming skills than the average accountant possesses, they do highlight the many creative ways in which AI can improve workflows and efficiencies for accountants.

Drafting Technical Accounting Memos

Does your department draft memos? AI can do it for you with the right preparation. Using an internal, paid version of an AI tool such as Microsoft Copilot, you can “train” the AI to write memos for you based on previous memos. The key is to ensure that the files you use to train the AI provide best practices. As the AI scans the internal memos, it will use them to develop its own language model and formatting style for future memos. With the right prompts and commands and clean, organized files to train the bot, accountants can use AI to generate new memos. Once the AI platform generates the memo, “humans in the loop” should review the final output for accuracy. AI can, and does, make mistakes, so the last step of a person reviewing the AI output is critical.

One important item to note: Do not try this with “free” or publicly available AI models. Use only proprietary, paid, internal AI tools to train your AI models. Remember that anything scanned by public AI models, like the freely available Copilot and ChatGPT, becomes part of their repository forever, so anything confidential or proprietary should not be used with public models. Private AI models, such as those paid for and installed locally by your IT team, keep the information contained within and used only by your organization.

Faster Code Generation

Even with the best nonprofit accounting software, there may come a time when you need to output data to spreadsheets and use various functions to calculate different things. That’s where AI can come in handy. Many accountants are using AI to develop formulas to use within spreadsheets. Rather than looking them up or tinkering with them, accountants are simply asking AI platforms to help them develop code to run their calculations. AI is good at coding, and many find that code generation is a great time saver.

Research Tasks

AI platforms excel at analyzing vast amounts of data, including searching the web. They are terrific at performing research tasks. This includes market research, accounting research, and more.

One tip: share your own thoughts with the AI platform, then ask it, “What would you add to this, and why?” It’s important to note that while AI does perform good research functions, it can still make mistakes. These “hallucinations” provide incorrect answers. So, take AI-based research with a grain of salt, and read through it carefully. Confirm or double-check sources, especially data that you plan to cite in a report.

Marketing Support

A fourth area that AI can support is marketing. Whether it’s donor outreach, membership drives, or finding new grants, AI platforms offer everything from drafting social media copy to developing ideal donor profiles.

As with other forms of research produced by AI platforms, the last stop for anything generated by AI should be a human being. People can read through text generated by AI and spot inaccuracies, cliches, and odd phrases that just don’t sound right. AI isn’t perfect, and the “human in the loop” is essential to using the tool effectively but not leaning on it as a crutch.

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.

Jul 22
0

Choosing New Accounting Software? Tips to Find Great Software

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments
person at desk using accounting software

What’s driving your need to choose new nonprofit accounting software? Some frequently cited reasons for shopping for a new system include legacy systems struggling to keep up with demand, the need to export data into spreadsheets to use it (or run reports), lack of integration, and lack of modern features, such as AI.

But if these are the reasons driving your software search, slow down. Shopping based on features is often a recipe for failure. Here, we share with you the best practices and tips to truly find the right nonprofit accounting software for your organization.

Don’t Shop Solely by Features

It’s tempting to make your wish list of features and go forth and shop. But it’s not the best idea. Although features are easy to understand, see, and experience, they aren’t always the best indicator of a good fit with your needs. Many packages come with more “bells and whistles” than the average accounting department needs. Such packages may be over-engineering for your organization, and over your budget, too. Although features are important – after all, you don’t want to be exploring spreadsheet data to run your reports anymore – there are more considerations than features alone.

Implementation Speed

One consideration is implementation speed. As you weigh your new software choices, ask the consultant or vendor how quickly the system can be up and running. Longer implementation times can be a sign of a system that’s more than you need or a vendor who can’t give your organization the personal attention it deserves.

How long is too long? Anything longer than six months is a sign of potential misalignment with your needs. And timelines stretching past a year are untenable for the average organization. Changing systems is disruptive, and lengthy timelines exacerbate the disruption. Look for reasonable timelines for weeks, not months, to help you transition efficiently to the new system.

Support and Training

Another important consideration for new software purchases is support and training. A good implementation team is critical, but so is the post-implementation support and service. No matter how tech-savvy your team is, there will be some level of customer support needed. Having local support is ideal, but if that’s not possible, a hotline that puts you immediately in touch with an expert who can walk you through troubleshooting or answer your questions is the next best thing. Read through the vendor’s materials carefully and ask clarifying questions to fully understand the support available to your team.

Training is also essential both to learn the new system and to maximize its use over time. Choosing a power user or super user, someone who will receive additional training, ensures that you have an expert in-house who understands advanced functions in the new system.

A single one-hour training session with the vendor probably won’t be enough. Discuss with the vendor or consultant providing the new software the length and type of training available as part of the implementation package. Different user groups may require varying levels of training, too, so consider that as part of the overall training approach.

Total Cost of Ownership

Lastly, the total cost of ownership (TCO) should be one of the deciding factors in your software choice. Software costs are only part of the equation. Factor into the costs any integrations or customizations required, as well as training and implementation time, and you’ll gain a much clearer picture of the TCO for the software.

Seek Expert Advice

Choosing the right nonprofit accounting software can be a daunting task. It helps to have an expert by your side who knows the right questions to ask and the often-overlooked aspects of software shopping that the average person doesn’t know. Welter Consulting is happy to assist you with your software choices and can guide you through the process from start to finish.

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.

May 21
0

Why Your Nonprofit Needs a Financial Risk Assessment

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Budget, Nonprofit | No Comments
person at desk with notebook, pen, and laptop and graphs showing high/low waves for risk assessment

A financial risk assessment is an annual audit of many areas of your organization’s financial preparedness and stability. Such an assessment looks at many areas of your company, including the overall management, human resources, facilities, finances, accounting, sales, information systems, and more. Here is why a financial risk assessment is vital for a healthy nonprofit.

The Purpose of a Financial Risk Assessment

Everything in life involves risk. That includes running a nonprofit. A financial risk assessment examines the current state of your business and identifies potential risks. It’s only after identifying risks that you can take action to address them.

You can conduct your own financial risk assessment; however, many find that obtaining outside assistance from their CPA, a nonprofit consultant, or another similar professional is helpful. Often, we are too close to our own business to see potential risks clearly. An outside perspective can cut through the familiarity of the everyday and see the gaps that we often miss.

Benefits of a Risk Assessment

A financial risk assessment provides many benefits to nonprofits by enhancing their overall operations and safeguarding their missions. It helps organizations identify potential risks, such as fraud or inefficiencies, ensuring that their funds and resources are managed effectively to achieve their goals. By addressing these vulnerabilities early, nonprofits can streamline their operations and make better use of their resources.

Conducting regular financial risk assessments builds trust among donors, board members, and the community. It demonstrates a commitment to sound financial practices, which can attract and retain long-term supporters. Additionally, these assessments ensure that nonprofits comply with legal and regulatory requirements, minimizing the risk of penalties or reputational damage.

Finally, a financial risk assessment equips nonprofits to navigate uncertainties like economic shifts or changes in funding sources. By preparing for these challenges, organizations can maintain their focus on their mission and continue to deliver meaningful impact.

Costs of Avoiding a Risk Assessment

Perhaps you’re thinking, “This is all well and good, but we’re so busy! We just don’t have time to stop and do a comprehensive assessment.”

Do you have time to address a big risk, like a cyber-attack? What about a trip and fall accident because you haven’t assessed the risk of a worn carpet in your reception area?

It’s like owning a car—do you ignore the knock in the engine until the car breaks down, or do you take it to a mechanic to get it checked out?

The costs of avoiding a financial risk assessment may include:

  • Mistakes in the balance sheet, such as liabilities not properly recorded or other mistakes that can muddy the financial picture, can be time-consuming to fix later.
  • Failing to conduct a physical inventory on a regular basis can lead to adjustments, negative equity, and other problems.
  • Missing or poor internal controls can lead to employee theft or mismanaged funds.

There are many more areas where failing to conduct a risk assessment can lead to problems. As you can see, it’s always better to prevent problems than to spend time later fixing them.

Other Benefits of a Risk Assessment

Other than avoiding scary problems, there are many more benefits derived from conducting a comprehensive risk assessment. The assessment can help you build your strategy, setting the stage for thoughtful decisions about where to invest for risk mitigation and where to step out in growth. It may also uncover untapped potential and lead to productive discussions about how your organization can expand.

Start Now

Don’t wait until the end of the year planning to conduct your assessment. You can start now. Pick one department or area of the company, such as finance or operations, and come up with a list of questions. Ask yourself what is working, what isn’t working, and what may be improved.

This is where working with an outside consultant can help. We’re happy to discuss your plan of action and the next steps for financial risk assessment and management.

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.