General Consultant Discussion

Do we have any member(s) that are experienced with a package called Financial Edge? A Sage 100 customer called me regarding this software as he's on his church's finance committee and is looking for some direction on the product.

Pretty sure that is Black Baud Not For Profit.

Yes that's what I've read on Blackbaud site.

Been a few years. Blackbaud reputation is great with fundraising. Not sure on accounting. I know they dumped their channel some years ago then I think tried to win them back. Not sure how that went.

If it is Blackbaud, then it may be on the pricey side. Having been on the accounting side of a couple churches, Sage could be used for them BUT it is weak with the pledges and the CRM type fields for member demographics. There are several ""church"" packages out, which will work. Just depends how much they have to spend (yes, I know the answer is zero) and what they want to use it for.

Raiser's Edge is the Not for Profit Module for Blackbaud. Jeff is right it is pricey. Financial edge is an accounting suite that integrates with its counter part Raiser's Edge. Typically Financial Edge shows up with fund accounting needs. Fund Accounting can kind of be done with a general Accounting app as there are many that do it with QuickBooks. Seems like I have not had a lot of luck when fund based organizations move to a tier 2 application and typically pick a NFP. I have seen Financial Edge mainly coupled its Raiser's Edge counterpart. Seems like the other NFPs win out when Fund Raising is not a component but it is out there standalone typically selected by someone that had experience in prior jobs. We saw Intacct making some progress with NFPs using their dimension functionality but again a tough row to hoe with a general ERP.

Blackbaud is what non profits think of first when looking for fund raising functions. Similar to people immediately thinking of Salesforce for CRM or Epicor for manufacturing. The accounting is nothing special. I agree with @ScottHickman in that fund accounting can be accomplished fairly easily using most good GL packages with flexible report writers. We have close to 20 non profits who use Sage 100 ERP with no reporting issues. FRx was great for reporting, but SI does well also.

Qualifying: 1. Do you need self-balancing funds? (If yes then realistically they need fund accounting package unless very small with no growth prospects) 2. Do you need reporting on non-fiscal periods? 3. Do you need to track a changing number of grants each year? In most cases you can squeeze into for-profit though the more active the funds the less likely that for-profit accounting is their long term solution.

Thank you everyone for your input. The church (and the diocese) has already selected this software, right or wrong, as they need to handle multiple points - the church, the school, the property assets and the other activities like fund raising. They came to me a little late in the game, which is too bad.