What are nonprofits?

Nonprofits are organizations that are not business-minded and receive contributions from third parties. Setting up a nonprofit requires the pivotal traits of trustworthiness, honesty and accountability. These traits need to be cultivated and developed in the organization to encourage donors to invest their money, time and interest.

Just as businesses seek venture capital to begin work, nonprofits depend on donations to sustain their activities. This is why creating public confidence is vital in maintaining relationships. Businesses depend on the fact that it takes money to make money, and nonprofits believe the same. Donations from people of goodwill are what sustain nonprofit organizations. Even this money has to be accounted for.

Why do nonprofit organizations require accounting?

There is a popular stereotype that nonprofits do not require financial accounting because they are not profitable businesses. However, all nonprofits require professional accounting services. When expenses exceed revenue, the amount that is profit but not categorically referred to as that is returned to the organization to serve its purpose.

Donors may be wary of giving if a nonprofit organization has too many expenses. They will need to understand what their money will go into doing, and being overly spent is enough to dissuade them from contributing.

Some financial experts advise nonprofits to use similar accounting techniques that for-profit organizations use. This is because everything financially works the same in terms of income and outcomes. For nonprofit organizations, income represents donations while outcomes represent services provided.

QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit

QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit provides the following services to nonprofits:

• Safeguard donor data. With QuickBooks, you can add, delete, view or modify donor data.
• Grow your donor lists. The system allows for increasing donor data without compromising the speed of processing. It also allows for easy searching using the filter option.
• Receive useful insights. With the inclusion of big data analytics, QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit advises you on trends and helps you forecast possible changes in expenses and prepare adequately for them. Using Advanced Reporting, a QuickBooks feature, one can compile fact-based reports.
• Pledge forms for donors to sign and donate through. By doing so, organizations can track the percentage of pledged money already paid and what remains to be fulfilled.
• Paying staff. This service is only available if you upgrade to the Gold, Platinum or Diamond plans.
• Managing expenses (accounts payable)
• Managing income / donations and contributions (accounts receivable)

QuickBooks Enterprise Nonprofit is robust and can handle an increase in users without slow speeds. Therefore, large nonprofits can take advantage of this service.

While it does not provide a free trial like other QuickBooks products, Enterprise Nonprofit goes above and beyond to provide value for money. The first version costs $1,275 annually, but this is the base fee. Any additional subscriptions, such as cloud hosting and data backup, or users may cause the price to rise.

Enterprise Nonprofit is only accessible on desktop computers. Due to its volume and handling interactivity issues, mobile versions do not exist. This is the reason why this is the best product for large nonprofits and not small ones that are starting out.

Blackbaud

On Blackbaud’s website, they describe the success of their service for nonprofits as:

• Used by 80% of the most influential brands
• In business for more than 35 years
• Over $100 billion has passed through it since its inception

Blackbaud deals with nonprofits that serve the greater social good, such as education institutions, healthcare organizations, religious organizations and foundations. It helps set up fundraisers and increase funds raised each time a new fundraiser is required. It also helps in marketing and encouraging new donors to contribute. Using cutting-edge technology, it also helps plan for future outcomes by analyzing data using data analytics tools. The most important role of Blackbaud is to perform accounting services.

Under financial management, it helps users to plan and budget for available funds. It also streamlines understanding of endowment management.

Araize

Araize is used for nonprofit accounting. Its FastFund accounting software offers payroll services; meaning organizations can pay their employees through the service. Donors can contribute through Text2Give, face-to-face donations and the website.

FastFund can be accessed over the internet and from any device. Araize can be used by nonprofits and similar organizations of all sizes. With experience of over 30 years, Araize can be trusted to deliver high-quality management services for nonprofits.

The best thing about Araize is that FastFund allows you to relinquish all the management requirements to them so that you can focus on your projects. A nonprofit’s financial demands may be overwhelming, and Araize ensures it’s a little easier for you by handling payrolls and fiscal responsibilities.

The prices are relatively low. They are:

Fund accounting: $42 monthly with no fees required to set up; one can cancel anytime. This plan gets you:

• Cash receipts tracking
• Budgeting
• Financial statements
• Customized account charts

Fundraising: $20 monthly with no set-up fees and any-time cancellations. This tier gets you:

• Campaign management
• Pledge reminders
• Customized reports
• Membership management
• Automated receipts

Payroll: $66 monthly. No setup fees, anytime cancellations and free support. The features in this level include:

• Payroll payment and tax tables
• Filing taxes
• Customized reports

The all-inclusive premium plan starts at $94 per month and includes all the levels above in it.

You can also schedule a free one-hour demo to have a feel of how it works.

Aplos

Aplos deals mostly with church financing. It is cloud-based and provides support to its users. Here are some of the features of using Aplos as your nonprofit accounting software of choice:

• Built-in accounting software
• Team and group management
• Donor records management
• Receive online donations
• Data analytics
• Communication

Aplos is robust enough to handle large organizations and churches and provides the necessary tools to make financial reporting easier. Some of these tools are balance sheet or income statement creators.

It allows users to include a giving widget on their home websites for donors to give comfortably. They can select their preferred giving method and specify the purpose of their gift. For instance, tithing or giving for a certain project.

Aplos lite goes for $39.50 per month, while Aplos Core+ goes for $69.50 per month.

Ultimately, nonprofits do require accounting software. They go a long way in curbing fraudulent activities in organizations because every money received is accounted for. Before selecting the best accounting software for your business, you need to consider the size of your organization. Larger organizations require more robust software and, often, higher-tier packages.