Category

Accounting Software

Nov 19
0

Integration, the Key to Donor Management Automation

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Donations, Nonprofit | No Comments
person at computer using integration management software

Donor management encompasses all marketing and communication steps necessary to attract new donors and nurture existing donor relationships. Tasks included as part of the donor relationship management process include attracting new donors through marketing campaigns, events, advertising, and more; follow-up communications with new donors, such as thanking them for their gift and sending required information for tax purposes, and continual marketing to them through newsletters, advertisements, personalized emails, direct mail, and more. Lastly, data from donor campaigns must be analyzed and interpreted to build on successes and retire unsuccessful campaigns.

This mostly manual process benefits from automation. Automation in the donor management process reduces manual tasks, streamlines data and reporting, and can enhance donations. However, to automate the donor management process, nonprofits must ensure that their donor marketing or customer relationship management (CRM) and nonprofit accounting platforms are fully integrated.

Why Is Integration Vital to Donor Management Automation?

Integration of critical platforms, such as donor management software and nonprofit accounting systems,  ensures that all data is up-to-date and accessible in one place, reducing the risk of errors and data duplication.

Enhanced efficiency is another significant benefit. Automation through integrated systems streamlines administrative tasks like data entry, donation tracking, and reporting. This frees up staff time to focus on strategic activities like donor engagement and fundraising campaigns.

Improved donor relationships are also a key advantage. With integrated systems, nonprofits can personalize communications and interactions based on comprehensive donor profiles. This helps build stronger relationships and increase donor retention by ensuring timely and relevant outreach.

Finally, integration ensures seamless communications. All channels, such as email marketing, social media, and event management tools, work together cohesively. This creates a unified experience for donors and ensures consistent messaging across platforms.

By integrating their systems, nonprofits can enhance their operational efficiency, improve donor engagement, and ultimately increase their impact.

Five Ways in Which Automation Helps Donor Management

There are many ways in which automation helps donor management. These include:

  1. Reduced manual data entry: With system integration and automation, data entry is reduced or eliminated. Donor information entered into the accounting system flows seamlessly into the CRM and vice versa. This saves significant time and effort.
  2. Eliminate mistakes: By reducing manual data entry, your organization can reduce the chance of mistakes and duplicate data.
  3. Better reports: Integrated CRM and accounting platforms also ensure that as donor information is updated in the CRM, the accounting information is automatically updated too. This ensures that reports generated from the accounting platform contain the latest information.
  4. Improved insights: Integration ensures that reports contain data from multiple sources, leading to better insights. Such reports can also be generated rapidly, leading to more accurate decision-making about donor campaigns. Marketers can capitalize on trends and respond swiftly to opportunities.
  5. Enhanced donor communications: Automated donor management can also enhance communications by sending customized thank-you letters and follow-up campaign materials.

Take Advantage of Automated Donor Management Today

As you can see, nonprofits receive many benefits from integrating CRM and accounting platforms and automating their donor management tasks. Start today with a comprehensive review of your existing platforms. Which may need to be updated? What can be integrated? Then, look at the possible benefits of donor management automation. What can your organization achieve through automation?

With the answers, you can take the next step and ensure software and systems are prepared to accommodate automated donor management programs.

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.

Jun 20
0

Tame the Paper Tiger: How to Get Accounting Files Under Control

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments
person using ERP accounting software on both a mobile phone and laptop, Accounting Files

How dependent is your office on physical paper? Do you have file cabinets crammed into every hallway and corner, or have you tamed the paper tiger and transformed your office into a streamlined and efficient digitally based accounting office?

The pandemic forced many organizations to consider going paperless as more employees had to work from home. However, not everyone continued the transition to paperless. Many organizations continue using basic software such as spreadsheets to manage their accounting. They print invoices and bills, file bank statements and credit card statements, and keep customer files in file cabinets.

This isn’t necessarily bad, but it is inefficient. Today’s digital transformation affects nonprofits just as it does for profits, offering time-saving software and technology to better manage accounting, finance, and overall paperwork. Let’s get your paperwork under control and talk about some of the new and better ways to manage these tasks.

Nonprofit Accounting Software

Specialized nonprofit accounting software can help you move from an inefficient paper-based or spreadsheet-based accounting to a nearly paperless office.

Nonprofit accounting software was built specifically for nonprofit organizations. It includes basics such as a general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable, and organizes the information logically for nonprofits. Additional nonprofit accounting software offers grant management functions, tracking expenses and revenues by program area, and more. Donor management software can be used alongside nonprofit accounting software to manage outreach campaigns and provide a coordinated central repository for all information.

Using nonprofit accounting software instead of spreadsheets helps control excess paper in your office in several ways. Nearly all the basic accounting functions you need to track, from invoices to credit card and banking information, are all tracked electronically, eliminating the need to print and store everything. Additionally, you can run reports more easily from a dedicated nonprofit accounting program than from spreadsheets. You can create and share PDFs of your balance statement, income statement, cash flow, and more.

During audits, if you currently need the auditors onsite or must print reams of paper and carry it to their office, you’ll find it much easier with accounting software. With nonprofit accounting software, you can provide auditors with usernames and passwords, allowing the auditors to select and review any information electronically. And, if you’ve chosen to use a cloud-based accounting platform, the auditors can access the system remotely. They may not have to spend several days onsite if they can review information electronically.

By moving your accounting to a completely digital system, you’ll save paper (and trees!). You’ll also reduce the number of mistakes in your accounting. Unlike a spreadsheet, which may require you to type information into multiple worksheets, with an accounting program, you just enter it once into the system. Accounting software offers many timesaving features and improves efficiency in any organization.

Differences Between Nonprofit Accounting Software and Small Business Software

Many nonprofits consider specialized accounting software but opt instead for off the shelf small business software. Such software may be appealing. It may have a lower price tag and easier onboarding than a robust nonprofit accounting platform.

However, small business software is not designed for the specific needs of a nonprofit. It does not track revenues and expenses by program. It cannot manage grants easily. And it does not integrate with donation software. What you save in upfront and other licensing costs, you may end up spending on custom programing to get small business software to produce the right reports or track line items correctly to the general ledger.

Speak with Nonprofit Accounting Software Experts

If it’s time to make the switch and tame the paper tiger, speak with the nonprofit accounting and software consultants at Welter Consulting today. We’re experienced at working in the nonprofit world and understand the challenges you face managing your accounting. We can suggest the right accounting platform and other software to streamline your office and tame that paper tiger.

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.

Jun 13
0

The Art of Accounting Storytelling: Use Storytelling Techniques for Effective Presentations

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit, Uncategorized | No Comments
Person giving accounting presentation via a large computer monitor, Accounting Storytelling

Once upon a time …

Your mind probably raced back to childhood at that phrase, to many pleasant memories of adults reading stories to you. The human mind is hardwired to listen to stories, and our brains naturally gravitate toward the time-tested framework of a story: a beginning, middle, and end; a hero on a quest; a villain who tried to stop the hero; and the wise guide who helps the hero overcome the challenges.

Financial professionals may think that storytelling techniques are for sales, marketing, and donor relations, but they also offer a rich framework with which to share information so that it is understood and remembered. Let’s examine the art of storytelling and how accountants can leverage this method for better communications.

Why Use a Story Framework for Financial Presentations?

Every accountant or financial professional must present numbers. Whether it’s presentation budgets to stakeholders or reviewing the annual report with the board, at some point this year you will be asked to present to a group.

Part of the art of presenting wisely is engaging the audience’s attention. Accountants may face a significant challenge when presenting numbers because not everyone in the group understands basic accounting concepts. To have your point understood and remembered, you may need to use creative methods to share information. This is where storytelling techniques come into play.

Everyone has heard stories. We watch movies and television shows, we read books and see plays. We know the framework of a good story. It is burned into our subconscious mind through thousands of repetitions over the course of a lifetime. Tapping into this framework to share financial information helps engage your audience and share information in ways they can easily grasp.

Accounting Storytelling Framework

So just how can you use a storytelling framework for your numbers-based presentation? Think of the hero’s journey. Every hero starts off on a quest. Luke Skywalker set out to return R2D2 and the Death Star plans to the Rebels to thwart Darth Vader and the evil empire. That was his quest and the hero’s journey unfolded in two hours of adventure that has kept audience spellbound for decades.

Now you may not be a Jedi knight, but you are the ninja of accounting, so let’s apply this framework to a common scenario: presenting budgets to stakeholders. In your accounting story, you must first explain the challenges from the audience’s perspective. You must see the information through their eyes and focus on what is important and memorable to them.

What information are you sharing with them? What is the story behind the numbers? Focus on the narrative flow around the data. What is the high-level takeaway, and what is the story inherent in the information?

Good stories paint visual pictures in the mind of the audience. You can do this with your data by using data visualizations such as graphs and charts. The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is true when it comes to presenting accounting or financial data.

Using Your Accounting Software to Craft a Compelling Story

The right accounting software plays an important role transforming basic data into stories through data visualizations. Does your software help you create various charts, graphs, and other visualizations for compelling presentations, or do you spend hours exporting data into spreadsheets and crafting visuals from imported data?

If the latter describes a typical scenario, it’s time to consider updating your software. Newer government accounting software and nonprofit accounting software provides robust data visualizations. It can really make a significant difference not only in how you present but in the impact your presentation has on the audience.

Using storytelling techniques to share financial information may seem far-fetched, but it’s a time-tested method for helping audiences engage and connect with information. Try it and become the hero of your finance team

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 14
0

Planning for the Successful Transition to New Accounting Software

By | Accounting, Accounting Software, Nonprofit | No Comments
person using accounting software on laptop and mobile phone

Perhaps your organization has outgrown spreadsheets or off-the-shelf small business accounting software. Now, it’s time to find government fund accounting or nonprofit fund accounting software. The platform of your dreams has all the bells and whistles you’ve hoped for: great budgeting features, invoicing and automation, and super reports.

As you prepare for the implementation of your new accounting solution, there are several steps you can take to prepare your data and your team for the transition to the new platform. With these steps, you’re more likely to have a successful transition to your brand-new accounting software.

Clean Your Data

The data that’s currently in your system, whether you’re using spreadsheets or a small business accounting program, will move into the new system to get it started. If there are mistakes or errors in your current system, now is the time to correct them.

Cleaning data refers to the process of identifying and correcting errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in a dataset to ensure its accuracy, completeness, and reliability for analysis or other purposes. This process involves several steps, including identifying errors, handling missing data, removing duplicates, and standardizing data. Additional steps may be resolving inconsistencies and developing what is called a “data dictionary” or a standard guide to data inputs.

Consider your donations for the past year, for example. Perhaps you input donor names and addresses into a database, spreadsheet, or your old business accounting program, and now you want to move it into your new accounting database. Checking to make sure there are no duplicates is a smart idea. Duplicates may not be exact matches, so you may need to work with your team to generate lists and manually check them. (For very large data files, there are companies that specialize in data cleanup.) Common places where duplicates creep into files include:

  • Addresses where road, street, or avenue are spelled out—and a second address where it is abbreviated. You’ll need to decide what the standard for your organization will be—the postal abbreviation or spelling out the full word.
  • Names where a first initial is used (J. Smith), fully spelled out (John Smith), or includes a middle initial (John A. Smith). You’ll have to decide which John Smith version to keep.

These are just two examples of some very common areas where duplicate records can occur. Other places to clean up before exporting your data to move it into the new system include reconciling bank accounts and credit cards, updating A/P and A/R, and ensuring other financial information is updated and accurate.

Document Procedures and Workflows

The accounting and finance team should document common processes, procedures, and workflows. This is important because your new accounting platform may include ways to automate steps in the workflow. It is also a good time to dust off any procedures you have already written out and update them if necessary.

Some examples include:

Donation Processing Workflow

  • Receiving donations via various channels (online, mail, in-person).
  • Recording donor information and donation details.
  • Issuing donation receipts or acknowledgments.
  • Allocating donations to specific programs or funds (if applicable).
  • Reconciling donation records with bank deposits.

Program Expense Allocation Workflow

  • Allocating expenses to specific programs or projects.
  • Tracking program-related expenses separately from administrative and fundraising expenses.
  • Ensuring expenses are allocated in accordance with donor restrictions (if any).
  • Reporting on program expenses to stakeholders, including donors and grantors.

Other common nonprofit workflows include grant fund management, compliance reports, and general financial reporting.

By documenting frequently used workflows on paper, you’ll be in a much better position to understand how the same process works in your new accounting platform. Working with your software vendor or consultant, you can set up the workflows, ensure the reports you need are ready, and be better prepared for the new software.

Work with a Skilled Nonprofit Accounting Consultant When Installing New Accounting Software

It’s vital to get your new accounting software set up, and the data moved into it correctly. This is an area where having a skilled and experienced nonprofit accounting software consultant is vital. With the right consultant by your side, the transition to your new platform will be smoother and easier. You’ll be up and running in no time, with the right automations in place for maximum efficiency so you can better manage margin to support your mission.

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.