Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Reviews

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Exporting data is easy, so long as the export you are looking for is available. Importing fund codes is do-able but may require some significant preparation of the upload. BBFE allows for a seemingly unlimited amount of codes to be attached to funds, accounts, and transaction lines. This is very helpful. BBFE has some built in custom reporting facilities that can be helpful. BBFE has a detailed security model that can help with internal controls.

Reports: many of the builtin reports do not contain running totals and grand totals as well as header information page-to-page as one would like. Exports: the data exports are not true sql type, but are a simplified version, which is sometimes adequate. You might need another sql facility to adequately access the data and control the data joins. BBFE imposes credit memos and disallows negative invoices--depending...

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I guess if not being "too complex" is a pro, that would be it for Financial Edge. It is a simple product and doesn't have too many bells and whistles so its pretty easy to pick up on.

Hmm where to being.... I will preface this by saying that our implementation of FE was a nightmare. They had people leaving the company left and right and in our 3 month implementation and data conversion, we were passed along to 3 different Project managers. Because of this we were playing a constant game of catch up and I don't think we were ever really given a good training of how to use the product....

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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

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.

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.

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.

The report writer allows financial statement to be developed using column and row specifications that are user defined. The row specs are based on organizing the chart of accounts. The columns are user defined and are adequate.

Blackbaud is not intuitive or user friendly. Trying to control the software is very cumbersome. Also the report writer in Financial Edge is less flexible than other software products I have used. Columns are defined as to time periods. But if one wants to run the same financial statement from past time periods, these specs must be re-written. The reporting periods should be a relative definition and should refer to a fiscal period selection at run time.

RaisersEdge is easy to use and store data. RaisersEdge has vast capabilities and reliability. FE makes the process of accounting and check printing very easy. Both products integrate well with other software

Even though RaisersEdge has many different tools - you may not be likely to use many of them regularly. Instead I find I reuse the same tools and end up bypassing a lot of what I could do, instead sticking to the essentials. Those extra functionalities just are not that useful to me

I have used Financial Edge for over 10 years in both "traditional" non-profit settings, as well as a school. In all of these organizations, we also had Raiser's Edge - which was integrated with Financial Edge. Through the canned reports, as well as building custom reports, I have been able to accurately report on my organization's finances. The Student Billing module allows a school to record all payment activity for a student and tie that directly to the GL.

I have encountered many organizations that purchased Blackbaud Software without being properly trained. As a result, they become frustrated with the product which leads to negative comments. The sales reps should not be allowed to sell the software without a training package included.

Financial Edge, coupled with Raiser's Edge fundraising software provides seamless financial reporting opportunities for non-profits. I would suggest that you partner RE and FE together to maximize the horse power of both products.

Financial Edge and Raiser's Edge have a learning curve if you have never used the software before. When converting from another software, work closely with your Blackbaud team to ensure a successful transition.

I love the fact that I can easily extract data. I also like that I can setup account restrictions and distributions to make sure data is correct and accurate, not to mention it saves time!

Currently, accounts receivable and payroll are not in the cloud. I look forward to when all the modules are in NXT.

Very good customer service. Comprehensive training program. I took all courses and mastered the software within 3 months. Those courses gave me an in-depth view of the software and simplify my work process. Financial Edge has easy-to-use features that meet our organization needs. I like the query function, VCO and various reports. VCO allows me to build reports in certain format, and query allows me to extract data quickly. The query function helps me survived this year's auditing. When an account was off, I used query and easily found the problems to fix it.

It logged me out and ran very slow sometimes. I'd like it to be able to communicate with excel easily.

FE is great for a fund accounting software. It does all the basics. A/P is simple and easy to accomplish. The fixed asset module works great. the ledger is fine. It can get more complicated than necessary due to the ledger structure

FE is too hard to get help. There is a lot online, but sometimes you just need to have someone talk you through an issue. I have had an issue once where I needed to have their IT dept. fix a corruption in their software when I was closing a fiscal year. This software simply costs too much for maintenance and support.

FENXT is a very robust product. This web-based product is being enhanced constantly. The folks at Blackbaud have been very responsive to customer feedback and if there is a functionality that isn't there, they do their best to make sure that if it's possible, it is implemented. Very happy with how the product has evolved.

My suggestion at this time would be to wait until features are closer to being released before announcing them. Very frustrating when you know that something you need is going to be added but then it take six months for it to be ready.

Financial Edge is both user friendly and robust. It has significant available features to tailor your needs for reporting, querying, lookups, and of course importing and changing journal entries. The additional modules such as AR and AP are a must and integrate seamlessly for GL posting. Raiser's Edge, Blackbaud's sister product, posts directly into FE and contains significant available data for our development team. The two systems are fully linked, so that if there is a RE batch posted in FE, I can click on it in FE and bring up the record in RE.

The only big drawback with Financial Edge has been cost. The initial install and annual maintenance are a hefty price for a nonprofit struggling to serve its constituents.

- Love being able to run reports including un-posted transactions - Love being able to attach documents to journal entries in NXT view

- Journal entry template is clunky to use & requires a lot of clicking - Journal entries are listed "backward" in NXT (compared to database view) - Can't view the entire journal entry on one screen in NXT & only see line numbers once the entry is posted in NXT view

Ease of use. Ease of implementation. Ease of customer support.

AS our company has grown, we have become accustomed to finding work arounds to use because of the integration with Raisers Edge. Attributes in Raisers Edge helped us so many times.

The FE NXT webview is a great improvement over the database view and I am looking forward to the continued delivery of new features as they role them out.

Cost. The software does allow for more complex reporting than some others I have used but the cost continues to rise and due to the development and we continue to review the ROI year over year.

Blackbaud has created a real community. You can talk with people in your industry, from others, and anyone who works for Blackbaud. Support is great and their followup is refreshing.

I wish they were based here in Atlanta. BB HQ is awesome and I wish they were closer, but it gives me a destination when I am looking to go to SC.

The query, reporting and newly added wealth rating features are easy to use and has assisted in the improvement of my interaction with donors.

Updates sometime cause changes in the queries and or account that need to be updated. If I do not check the updates, my reporting could go wrong.

Really enjoying the training available for leArning financial edge. Accounting software is easy to use.

Customer service tickets could improve. I placed a ticket and they could not help me. But I met someone at the conference and he is going to push the issue forward.

Easy to use and similar style across all Blackbaud products. Many different features and functionality of the product line.

Reporting can use some upgrades. We are needing to build crystal reports for some of the items we need to report on

Financial Edge NXT is fairly easy to use in that the search functionality is intuitive and the software has the ability to be quite comprehensive, depending on how familiar you are with working in it and how much information you choose to input. The more you put in, literally and figuratively, the more you will get out of it.

I wish that all of the Blackbaud programs would integrate easier across the platforms. I find that I need to open several programs to get comprehensive information.

The Visual chart organizer makes it easy to shuffle our numbers into different formats depending on the purpose and the audience.

I don’t like having to click multiple tabs to see all related information abt something (budget and actuals for an account, or vendor info and payment activity) but looking forward to NXT which will solve this.

The dashboard and real time updates enable us to get an accurate update on accounts. We can get an immediate picture of budgets etc.

Exporting excel spreadsheets and crystal reports is an issue. Files must first be saved to a cloud folder and then opened and processed on your hard drive.

Intuitive mapping of how to complete processes, dynamic reporting and general ledger options, excellent support.

No ability to "drill down" into reports (something that is fixed in Financial Edge NXT), some slower processes in general.