Cloud fund accounting software for nonprofits
4.36/5 (47 reviews)
I like Financial Edge NXT and I couldn’t imagine doing my job without it!
Pros
I like that this software is for finance and accounting professionals. It has helped me to perform the daily functions of my job with limited interruptions.
Cons
I haven’t been able to understand the allocation module, and so we are still doing our investments manually. The guide that is provided seems to work more for people who have an overall understanding of how it should work.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
Overall, FE is a good application if you are already RE but do not have an existing accounting application. If your organization is small and do not have an IT team, then look at Blackbaud to host your RE and FE applications and let the professionals take care of your application hardware infrastructure.
Pros
If you are using Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge (RE) software and need another application to perform accounting functions, Financial Edge (FE) is the application that will take care of Vendor tracking, A/R, A/P, etc. Rather than using another accounting application (ie. Quickbooks), Financial Edge integrates with Raiser's Edge. When you post gifts from Raiser's Edge, it goes over to Financial Edge and updates the information. The information for batch number, Appeal, Funds, Campaign migrate over to FE from RE. The user interface, look and feel between Financial Edge and Raiser's are the same. If you know RE, then FE will be easy to catch on. If you are hosted by Blackbaud, then you will be looking for FE/NXT
Cons
While there is a lot of integration from RE to FE, this comes at a cost. The FE application is expensive compared to other financial applications. If you are hosting FE on-premise, I believe Blackbaud charges by the number of users. You also need to a server with SQL to run FE. This is not like QuickBooks which can install on a local PC. If you are hosted by Blackbaud, then you will be looking at FE/NXT and again price will your main concern.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
I have been using Financial Edge for almost four years now and the the strides they have made from my first impression to now are outstanding. When I first started my job I was thrown into the systems and provided little training and while the system (Accounts Payable, General Ledger) were easy to learn they were a little clunky looking and the features that made them powerful (attributes, global changes) were not something you would find on your own. We recently (been a little over a year) moved to the NXT version and while all the functionality is not there yet I do appreciate BlackBaud taking the time to listen to their customers while building out the functionality instead of just updating it based on the database view. While this make take more time to build out (which can be frustrating) it will hopefully allow for an even more powerful platform in the end that allows us to be a more effective and efficient team in the end.
Pros
New functionalities being rolled out that allow us to use more systems working together instead of isolated.
Community boards to allow users to make suggestions and learn from each other.
Cons
That NXT is not complete yet (but I understand why and agree with their methodology).
Customer support can be clunky at times when the first person is not able to help you.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
Our finance and marketing departments use Blackbaud FE and RE daily and they get the job done. Migrating to something else at this point would be a monumental task, but it still may well be worth the effort.
Pros
Interfaces with our Fund Raising software (Raiser's Edge, I am equally thrilled with that too, and mostly for the same reasons cited herein).
Blackbaud offers a good training program (which considering the product license fees all of which should be free).
Cons
The reporting is cumbersome.
Lack of a self-service audit trail.
The interface is not intuitive.
Hi Dorothy!
I appreciate you taking the time to review Financial Edge 7 (legacy version of Financial Edge NXT) and being a loyal customer. All of the concerns you brought up in this review have been addressed the cloud-based version of FE7, Financial Edge NXT.
¿ Reporting - take advantage of being able to run multiple reports in your background at the same time, so that you can keep working while they run. You also get drill-down capabilities, 100 canned reports, and more.
¿ Interface - Financial Edge NXT is a cloud-based, modern, and intuitive platform. It is responsive and highly configurable.
¿ Audit Trail - Financial Edge NXT provides a complete audit trail with the ability for users (with permissions) to self-serve this information directly in the system.
¿ Migration - Migrating to Financial Edge NXT is very easy for Financial Edge 7 clients. We ensure that you have no loss of functionality, no data conversion, and no re-implementation.
- Blake Paradise
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 3/10
I have time to assist my departments in dealing with budget issues on a timely basis.
Pros
I like the fact that I can either trace from a detailed posting in Altru, through BBMS to Financial Edge and prove to the auditors how transactions were processed or vice versa with ease.
With this integration of the three services we have also been able to pass on to the departments receiving the income, the fees associated with processing credit card transactions - thus reducing management overhead.
If you have created your environments correctly and have adequate safeguards in place as to how data is entered you have the ability to close within two-three days of month end. This gives us the ability to actually analyze the data into a monthly report that management uses to correct or improve programs.
Cons
When in the reporting function, if you are asking for a major detailed report, the system does slow down and could be a bit faster.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Contact Blackbaud for detailed pricing information.
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