Insights
Industries: Nonprofit

Sage Intacct’s automation, reporting and dashboarding features can help an organization avoid pitfalls and remain compliant.

By Kristen Oshiro, Senior Manager, Advisory 

Most nonprofit organizations are looking to grow and increase their impact in their communities to further their mission. However, many organizations have found that expanding too quickly can seriously hurt the quality of their work. Rapid growth can strain company processes and resources. For many nonprofits, the growing pains might be felt most acutely in the accounting department. 

Management and donors demand accuracy in the accounting records. Failing to maintain the books timely and accurately could cause a nonprofit to lose its tax-exempt status, see board members struggle to uphold their fiduciary responsibility to the organization, or be denied additional funding from new or existing funders. However, there are software options available to nonprofit organizations designed to ease the burden on the accounting department and reduce the risk of human error. 

The most versatile choice for the nonprofit space is Sage Intacct. Sage Intacct’s nonprofit accounting software was one of the first to embrace the cloud paradigm and now provides a fully loaded accounting software designed for growing organizations. The software’s vast range of features includes cloud-based accounts payable/receivable, purchasing, financial reporting and dashboards, and more. For an organization that finds itself using many Excel files to close out the month, this is the time to consider an upgrade. 

5 Major Benefits of Sage Intacct Nonprofit Accounting Software  

While there are numerous benefits to switching to Sage Intacct, the top five areas that we see a nonprofit benefiting from using Sage Intacct over other software programs are: 

  1. Accessibility: With the global pandemic, many nonprofit professionals have been forced to work from home. Some are entertaining the idea of working permanently or partially from home to reduce overhead costs. Sage Intacct is a cloud-based solution that allows users to log in from their computer wherever they may be. This allows organizations more flexibility and mobility so that they won’t miss a beat should employees move from office to remote work or vice versa. If there are any security concerns about remote access, the Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 report for Sage Intacct should put your IT team at ease. 

  1. Custom allocations: Nonprofits are now required by Accounting Standards Update 2016-14 to report expenses by both their functional and natural classifications. Sage Intacct’s allocations feature comes in handy when the organization has shared costs that need to be allocated across its various programs. For example, if rent needs to be split across the organization by headcount, you can create an allocation within Sage Intacct that is assigned to the line item you wish to allocate. Sage Intacct will then perform the allocation for you rather than you recording a journal entry with multiple lines, the latter of which brings with it the risk of miscalculating the allocation. 

  1. Classifying transactional data by up to five categories: Keeping a record of expenses can become more complex as an organization grows. Most nonprofits will need to track money flow over multiple categories, departments or programs. Sage Intacct allows organizations to keep tabs on up to five different categories. QuickBooks Desktop, by comparison, only permits two. 

  1. Dashboards and other advanced reporting: Another area where Sage Intacct can have a huge impact is how easy it makes it to collate data. Sage Intacct enables users to generate more meaningful, robust reports — not only for a nonprofit's management team but also for its donors. Let’s say an organization has a dimension that tracks foundations that grant money to the organization: Sage Intacct’s reporting feature can generate a Statement of Activities by funder with just a few clicks, which makes grant reporting a breeze. Or the nonprofit’s CFO could create customizable dashboards, allowing board members to see real-time snapshots of how the operation is performing. This enables the board and management to quickly identify any problems with cash flow and determine if they, say, need a loan or should seek other financial help. 

  1. Integrations: Sage Intacct has an open API and can seamlessly integrate with numerous other applications, from the ubiquitous Salesforce to the popular accounts payable service Bill.com. The ability to integrate these data sources enables staff to continue using the software they are already comfortable with and reduces double entry. And even if direct integration is not an available for a service you use, Sage Intacct still allows you to import multiple transactions or journal entries at a time, which saves the organization time on data entry. 

Get Nonprofit Software Solution Selection, Implementation and Management Assistance From BPM’s Experienced Professionals 

In these five areas alone, your organization is virtually guaranteed to save time by simplifying time-intensive tasks like allocations and journal entries. By utilizing Sage Intacct nonprofit accounting software, you can free up your staff’s time, enabling them to focus on more meaningful work. 

For any nonprofit looking for new accounting software solutions, the professionals at BPM are here to assist. Our team of experienced specialists will learn your business to ensure you maximize the benefit of choosing Sage Intacct and choose the best applications to meet your needs. After reviewing the ecosystem with you, they work tirelessly to implement and integrate your selected solutions with your current systems. Should your organization need help training employees to work with these new modules or integrations, our team is there to help with that as well. To learn more about how BPM can assist nonprofits with their accounting software needs, contact Kristen Oshiro, Senior Manager in our Advisory practice, today. 

 


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