Nonprofit accounting software is a type of software that helps nonprofits to keep their financial records organized. They usually offer a number of features that you won’t find in standard top-of-the-line accounting software, such as free-form budgets and project management. Many nonprofits depend on these software programs because they offer so many useful features for keeping up with their expenditures and keeping track of fund-raising goals.
Online accounting software can help you save time and money by making your accounting job easier. Accounting software for nonprofits is a type of accounting software that is used by nonprofit organizations for their purpose. In fact, if you happen to be a nonprofit organization, you would surely need accounting software as well as financial software because these two programs will work together to make your nonprofit business more organized and more efficient.
Nonprofit Treasurer
As its name suggests, Nonprofit Treasurer was created specifically to meet the needs of small nonprofit organizations, such as parent-teacher associations, homeowners associations, professional association chapters, youth sports clubs, and more. With its integrated reporting and budgeting tools, this program is this free and easy-to-use. It is designed to make life easier for volunteer treasurers and other board members when it comes to financial management and oversight, along with all nonprofit accounting needs.
Aplos
Aplos specializes in fund accounting and donation software for nonprofits. Enjoy fund accounting with our user-friendly software, where you can easily input transactions and generate professional reports. Easily accept online donations and automatically track them for contribution statements.
GNUCash
This free software program can be useful for small nonprofit organizations. It is an open-source program that has some characteristics of Quicken and some small business accounting features. This software will allow you to create a multitude of reports, but you may need to export some data in Excel to complete them. You can use this software on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems.
Kashoo
Kashoo 2.0 is a time-saving accounting application that automates bookkeeping tasks for small business owners. Using machine learning, Kashoo categorizes and reconciles expenses with bank and credit card transactions, and provides accurate, complete, and real-time reports in one-click. In addition to automatic reconciling, Kashoo also provides OCR and receipt-matching. Simply drop an image of a receipt in the Inbox and Kashoo will automatically match it to a transaction.
Adminsoft Accounts
This software is a full double-entry accounting system and even allows you to manage payroll if needed. It will run on any system running a Windows platform and on Mac or Linux machines in certain situations.
Adaptive Planning
Financial planning and analytics software for nonprofits. Improve alignment for resources, services, and funding, and increase visibility into your nonprofit’s expenses. With our software, you can accelerate your organization’s budgeting, planning, and reporting cycles. Plan, forecast, re-forecast, and report by program, project, fund, grant, season, location, or by any dimension your business needs. Every nonprofit has its own specific challenges and demands – let us help you meet your goals.
BS1 Free Accounting
BS1 software works for small businesses and allows you to establish your files in different currency formats, which would allow you to manage international billing or purchasing. You can also create user-defined financial statements. You can upgrade for a fee to get your software customized if you would like.
Lazy8 Ledger
This free accounting program is a double-entry accounting program that is designed for users who are knowledgeable about bookkeeping practices. Your organization can also follow receipts and payments automatically. This program can also run on Windows, Linux, and Mac systems.
ImportOmatic
Omatic Post to G/L bridges the gap between your nonprofit¿s fundraising and program management system and your financial accounting system by ensuring that accurate information can be exported in a format that is targeted for that system (like Banner Finance, PeopleSoft, Workday, and more). By defining configurable parameters, the exported data is easily integrated with accounting software, resulting in more expedient and accurate financial reporting, and eliminating the room for error.
LedgerLite
This free accounting software by Responsive Software runs on Windows systems. This shareware program is a double-entry ledger system that can be scaled upward as your organization grows. One of the benefits for non-profit organizations is that you can also calculate account balances when you want rather than only on a quarterly or yearly calendar.
NetSuite
NetSuite is an all-in-one cloud business management solution that helps more than 27,000 organizations operate more effectively by automating core processes and providing real-time visibility into operational and financial performance. With a single, integrated suite of applications for managing accounting, order processing, inventory management, production, and supply chain and warehouse operations, NetSuite gives companies clear visibility of their information and control of their business.
FEATURES OF NONPROFIT ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE
Nonprofit Accounting Software Must Track and Manage Specific Donation Categories:
Donations to a nonprofit come in several different forms – grants, dues, events, services, pledges, bequests, etc. They require specialized tracking, documentation, and management across several platforms, projects, and even accounting periods. In order to measure the effectiveness of a donation, your organization needs a flexible, dynamic nonprofit accounting software capable of tracking these different kinds of donations.
Users can manage these transactions and create reports instantly for any audit. Some major donations are often restricted, meaning that they are constrained by specific requirements or an expected outcome. An example is a gift to a special scholarship fund at a university. “Unrestricted” funds are donations the nonprofit may use for any purpose. If your organization can’t report on how the donation was used in respect to donor requirements or restrictions, your organization risks losing future donation opportunities.
Reporting and Budgeting Features Are Essential for Nonprofit Accounting Software:
Financial reporting requirements for nonprofit organizations are pretty unique. Your reports must be accurate and detailed enough to meet regulatory and audit demands. Users can utilize nonprofit accounting software to generate fund accounting reports that will dive into performance against budgets or income versus expenses. Financial reports with a commercial accounting software application only measure income versus expenses. In summary, this results in time-consuming manual data crunching to get the answers relative to you.
Nonprofits use budgeting tools to help the organization meet specific demands or needs set forth by the board of directors or members of the organization. For instance, when the board approves a budget, they’re approving the use of resources for specific purposes. The budget sets certain spending limits and keeps costs in line with the funding that’s driving the organization and its initiatives. Stakeholders and other third party members usually require a formal budget before considering grant applications, credit extensions, pledges, and even gifts. A specialized budgeting tool provides an interactive measure of accountability, transparency, and integrity.
Nonprofit Accounting Software Thrives with User-Friendly, Automated Payment Processing:
Automated payment processing software takes care of all the back-end processes that occur when a donation or transaction is made. Nonprofit organizations need an automated, user-friendly payment processing feature to accept any type of contribution efficiently and correctly. Examples include online donation forms, text-to-give services, and any other form of digital donation. Automating this aspect of the accounting will save the organization hours and hours of manual labor. It also ensures your records are always updated correctly. Finally, automation ensures that vendors and staff get paid correctly and on time. Instead of worrying about payments, the organization can focus more on being able to manage its initiatives. More importantly, they can strategize on how to best apply for their funding.
Flexibility is also important for payment processing. If the accounting software cannot be customized or configured to the precise nonprofit needs, the organization may struggle to process transactions quickly and easily. This lack of flexibility can ultimately hinder the whole accounting process. When applications can’t grow and adapt to nonprofit demands, the accounting system itself can be a limiting factor. Complex nonprofits might not be able to process the number of donations they receive, and thus lose out on much-needed funding.
The Benefits of Integrating with a CRM:
Integration with a CRM is the most important feature needed for any nonprofit accounting application. The advantages of using a CRM with your nonprofit accounting system are endless. But we’ll touch on the most important one: connectivity.
Connectivity is one of the biggest benefits of using a CRM for accounting. Users can now automate many of the role tasks that organizations once had to do by hand. These include connecting donation management, fund allocation, and financial reporting to other parts of the organization. This creates a seamless 360° view of your organization. With a CRM, users can optimize staff efforts and put man-hours towards more company-driven tasks like developing stronger relationships with your donors!
Choose Accounting Seed for Your Nonprofit Accounting Software:
Accounting Seed gives nonprofit organizations complete control over their financial management lifecycle while letting users view financial data in real-time to make key decisions. We’re also integrated to the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), the world’s #1 nonprofit CRM. Our sophisticated multidimensional reporting dashboard lets you aggregate transactions and activities across your whole nonprofit organization:
- Multiple organizations
- Multiple currencies
- Any donors or grant
- Multiple locations
With our customizable click-no code-reporting and dashboards, you get fast closings with real-time analytics – in seconds, not days. This allows for maximum accuracy and efficiency on your nonprofit’s performance. Users can seamlessly manage funds, projects, and programs with varying financial factors on a single platform. This lets you eliminate confusion and reduce the time you spend navigating disparate systems to take your nonprofit to new heights.
BENEFITS
- Built-in and configurable dashboards and reports that allow you to customize your financial management, and comprehensive reporting to keep you informed about every dollar.
- Powerful allocation system for each dollar.
- Easy, transparent compensation tools for employees.
- Tracking all cash flow to reduce risk of fraud.
- Capability to grow with you as your organization grows. Produce an unlimited number of budget scenarios/versions.
- Balance and identify different funding sources with ease.
- Organize and prepare for an audit efficiently and accurately.
Conclusion:
There are numerous nonprofit accounting and budgeting software programs available that can assist your organization with anything from cutting checks to preparing financial reports. Try out various programs until you find the one that works the best for your organization’s financial management needs. You may find that one of the free programs listed here does everything you need, though if your group is large or has complex accounting needs, you may need to look at fee-based options.