Most popular features of all Nonprofit apps
25 reviewers had the following to say about Aplos's features:
We began using Aplos as a brand new church.
Pros
Bank integration makes it easy to import transactions. Contact management.
Cons
There are awesome graphs and charts on the dashboard, but unfortunately they do not have a lot of customization options or the ability to easily export.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Hoping for a more robust Contacts module (email, texting, more information tracking) in the future!
Pros
Great reporting. Easy to use.
Cons
The Contacts module is very limited - would be great to have more contact management tools (email, texting, grouping, tracking) so that we wouldn't have to have a separate software for that.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Please look into improving Contacts management.
Some things I like best: *easy to use *the "dashboard" gives a quick read on finances at a glance *fund-based accounting makes it easy to track various donations *customer service is excellent *cloud-based design makes access easy from anywhere Things I would like to see improved: *I would love to be able to integrate payroll with Aplos *Report can be customized, but not always as much as we would like Overall, this is an excellent product for the value and I would recommend it to anyone starting out.
Pros
Ease of use Fund-based accounting Cloud-based design Scalable Excellent customer support
Cons
Wish it included payroll integration Would like to be able to customize reports more
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
I would recommend it to anyone who needs both an accounting and donor management solution for their non-profit organization.
Pros
Takes online payments through WePay Can manage up to 5000 contacts. Contribution statements emailed to your donors.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Buy this software for your church!
Pros
Menu layout; integration between accounting and contributions; like the ability to enter a person in contribution management and it automatically gets entered in people database; reports are what I need; flexibility in making improvements to the system; they listen well; ease of use, don't necessarily have to be a CPA to use it.
Cons
the refreshing after entering a transaction takes 2 or 3 seconds instead of a split second :-)
Rating breakdown
Thanks for the positive feedback, William. We have done a lot of work since your original comment to improve the speed of the software, so I hope it is now lightening fast for you.
As someone who has been afraid of setting up a chart of accounts, I am so glad that we picked Aplos. I feel like we are going to be able to organize and present our finances so much more professionally than ever before.
Pros
Aplos has many good Introductory materials, and does a lot to help you get set up. There is also good customer support, and helpful webinars for when questions do arise.
Cons
Aplos doesn't integrate with a number of applications, which would be helpful such as payroll, or most Donor Management platforms.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
We anticipate that we will be able to produce better management financial reports with this fund accounting software than we were able to do with our prior software firm.
Pros
Aplos is a well thought out fund accounting package, great for churches and other not-for-profits. Support has been great as we started up using Aplos after our prior software firm abandoned their product. Good online resources to learn from, and also conducted a very thorough live, on-line training call with us.
Cons
We'd like the ability to more tightly control access by user than the system is currently configured.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
We were looking for a program for our nonprofit that would provide a customer records management system, accounting system and credit card processing.
Pros
Affordability, ease of use and AWESOME customer service.
Cons
We haven't had a chance to check out all the programs or to run reports yet. So far everything is working well.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Check it out - Aplos gives a free trial and they give a 50% discount if you purchase the software during the free trial period.
Pros
Their customer support is extremely helpful. Interface is easy to manage.
Cons
I haven't had any issues with donor management and this software.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
It integrates donation management with accounting so I'm not having to use two systems.
Cons
And they charge a premium to be able to access some functions that feel as basic as what is included in QuickBooks software.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
Aplos is perfect for the small to a medium-sized church that handles their finances via committee. The controls are intuitive, the reports are straightforward.
Pros
Reports are easy, data entry is easy, reconciling is easy.
Cons
In order to track who gives what, you will need to duplicate your entire database of people into it first, then maintain the duplication.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
If you don't need it to tie into an already existing database of people, run to Aplos as fast as you can. It's wonderful.
Pros
Great product, for nonprofits looking for a full financial management and accounting software!
Cons
When integrating for each account, I have to keep making sure it's on the right account if I go from transaction to integration.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
I was searching for a donor management CRM and Aplos was one of the software options sent my way.
Pros
Comprehensive platform if you are looking to run accounting, donor management and prospecting, etc from one place
Cons
No one contacted me by phone like other CRMs, so questioned their customer service.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Free Trial
Frequency of use: Occasionally
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
Accounting, credit card processing, year-end tax statements, donor communication, fund management.
Cons
There is no function to create a deposit slip for the bank. I'm told they are working on it. Sometimes the navigation between functions is a little inconvenient. We had used quickbooks for many years and I like this product so much better for fund accounting.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Make good use of the free trial period. Ask questions--the support team is very helpful and open to suggestions.
As a new client, the product and technical support to become familiarized with implementing this software has been superior, especially as compared to their competing vendors whom I've had to contact in this respect while in the process of evaluating which product best serves our needs.
Pros
Personally, the most appealing feature of this company's software is the attractive format in which all information is presented, along with the flexibility to analyze and report specific financial data that is compatible with what I've become familiarized with using previous methods of performing these tasks.
Cons
It does not offer all of the customization options I would like to have available for our reporting and accounting purposes.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Aplos support staff have been over-the-top and better-than-expected helpful, from initial import or data to addressing specific features we wanted.
Pros
Non-profit structure, multiple seat accessibility online, online giving integration, Form 990 head start
Cons
Ability to contact Donors individually or as selected segments or as a whole is missing.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Aplos is the best choice among other similar products out there. They are working to improve features and are responsive to customer concerns. Price point is or could be an issue.
Overall great software for new organizations very user friendly and they offer free web tools to assist with obtain8ng funding and other helpful tools
Pros
I enjoyed the fact that it was user friendly . I enjoyed the affordable monthly fees based of organization size. I also enjoyed the chat availability
Cons
I also didn’t like the fees that changed with the new donor management portion it was almost equivalent to the monthly fee
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
I looked at other options - some were too much for my need (both cost and complexity) and some could be made to work (Quickbooks for example) but were not really designed for a church.
Pros
You can import and export data.
Cons
Have found only 2 things missing so far: 1) My pastor wants the ability to use the letter/email functions to communicate with members (uses the contact database) without seeing their donation records - and right now that "separation" isn't available.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
For some of the reports I have to export the data and manipulate it in excel to get Debit and Credit Columns on reports that would usually have that info.
Pros
Ease of use
Cons
Reporting is not very detailed You can not manipulate the reports to get info you need
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
If you have simple accounting needs this software works great... especially for the price!
I hoped this would be a good solution for our needs, but it is a very expensive non-solution to even basic church management and accounting needs.
Pros
The support is integrated into the interface. It is available through most any computer with a web browser.
Cons
They claimed on their marketing materials that you could track attendance at various worship services, but you manifestly cannot do that.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
We run most of our invoicing through AP and Aplos does not have a strong tie between AP and payments, making it cumbersome to pay multiple invoices with one check.
Pros
The dashboard is very powerful and provides a lot of data up front.
Cons
Some navigation is awkward (like entering Percentage before Amount in AP, needing to click multiple + signs to expand sections in some reports, and having to enter each dollar amount to pay bills when the full amount should be the default). I lost data at least a couple of times trying to look up accounts while entering a Receipt because I wasn't warned that navigating away from the receipt would delete my entry.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Small non-profits will probably really like this software, but I think it still needs a few bells and whistles to be useful to medium-sized businesses.
Pros
The donation management platform is worth it by itself.
Cons
The product was all around good, but the user interface itself took sometime to understand.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Likelihood to recommend
Recommendations to others considering Aplos
Take some time to watch the tutorials on youtube, you will not be disappointed.
Understanding flow of fund accounting.
Pros
Nothing to say. Dashboard is nice, if the data is correct and updated.
Cons
They develop updates and implement them without knowing how it could impact the user and the users data that is imported through an API. Just started with at at the beginning of 2017 and am already considering looking for another software.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Aplos has been great about adding features that are helpful for book-keeping for a church with multiple funds. I appreciate that when feedback is given, Aplos listens and accommodates the needs that we have! Everyone at Aplos is super-friendly and very helpful!
Pros
That it is "multiple-fund friendly". I appreciate the ease of use for recording contributions and expenses.
Cons
Reporting but probably because I'm not sure what I'm doing. Contacts- I wish there was a way to record spouses together as a single contact.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
The system was easy to set up and the daily use was easy for the accountant and the management leaders to uses also.
Cons
I have any negative thought about the program that would be helpful to future possible users of this program.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
