Over 23 million companies use QuickBooks, the standard small business accounting software. Approximately 8.6% of users are nonprofit organizations. For nonprofits growing beyond the startup phase, QuickBooks offers a better way of managing financial and accounting data than spreadsheets alone; however, it has many limitations. If your organization currently uses QuickBooks and has begun to feel frustrated with these limitations, we will explore alternatives and next steps to move beyond simple accounting software and into nonprofit-specific accounting software.
QuickBooks for Nonprofits
QuickBooks has become the de facto alternative to spreadsheets for many businesses, including nonprofit organizations. The nonprofit version includes donation tracking, fund accounting, and specialized reports.
Many nonprofits struggle with several limitations within this version. It is not especially helpful for houses of worship, for example, which often spend considerable time, money, and effort customizing income, expenses, and reports. It does not scale easily so, if your organization is growing rapidly, you may find the system hinders more than helps your productivity.
Lastly, it is not made to integrate with other platforms, which results in siloed data. Organizations find themselves extracting data from QuickBooks and uploading it into Excel to run reports and data visualization, both of which defeat the purpose of moving from spreadsheets in the first place.
A QuickBooks Alternative for Nonprofits: Sage Intacct
If your organization encounters these limitations, Sage Intacct is an alternative to QuickBooks for Nonprofits.
There are many reasons why Sage Intacct provides an excellent alternative to QuickBooks. Here are our top three.
- Automation
- Integration
- Enhanced reports
1. The Benefits of Accounting Automation
If you have ever had to copy and paste data, upload data into your accounting system, or generate PDF invoices and email them to customers or clients, you know how time-consuming manual processes can be. Consider how long it takes to run end-of-month or end-of-quarter reports, prepare invoices, and email them. Think about how long it takes to follow up on invoices, create data visualizations, and conduct other vital accounting tasks.
Many of these routine tasks can be automated with nonprofit accounting platforms like Sage Intacct. Sage designed the platform with automation in mind, which means you do not need an IT person to program the automation—you can do it yourself.
One good example for nonprofits is expense approvals. In many organizations, approving expenses is a manual process. A staff member must email an approval form and receipt to a manager who approves it in writing. Then, the documentation is sent to accounting to reimburse the employee. This process requires several emails and often several days to complete.
Sage Intacct automated the process from start to finish. Once employees enter expense information into the system, it automatically routes it for approval. This single automation can save minutes for several employees, adding up to hours of potential time savings in a year. And that’s just one automation!
2. Integration with Other Software
QuickBooks is notoriously finicky to integrate into other software. This results in siloed data and a stand-alone accounting system. This may be acceptable for small organizations, but as your organization grows, you will want to generate comprehensive reports encompassing multiple management departments. The best way to accomplish this is through integrated platforms that share data seamlessly.
Sage Intacct offers excellent integration within the Sage suite of products and other platforms. Whether your organization sells memberships, workshops, or other online activities and needs e-commerce integration or wants to improve communications with a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Sage Intacct offers seamless integration. Users can choose from 350 integrations in the Sage marketplace or use APIs (application programming interface) to integrate with their chosen platforms. This makes Sage Intacct an excellent choice for organizations that require their accounting systems to integrate with multiple software platforms.
3. Enhanced Reports
Most accounting software comes with standard, out-of-the-box reports. These include profit and loss statements, balance sheets, income statements, sales reports, and similar standard financial reports. Nonprofits, however, often need additional reports and added depth to the information to report to boards, auditors, constituents, and donors the effectiveness of their programs and how their money is spent. Standard accounting packages rarely include these reports or require extensive customizations to create them.
With Sage Intacct, you will have access to many reports that accommodate numerous nonprofit financial accounting needs. It even accommodates FASB-required financial reporting requirements.
Ready to Step Up? Learn More About Sage Intacct
As your organization grows, you will need a comprehensive accounting system that accommodates nonprofits’ unique financial reporting and accounting needs. Consider Sage Intacct as you plan for future growth.
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.
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