Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT Reviews - Page 2

The cost of this software verses the others in the market is very affordable. The implementation went very smooth and it has been working very well. Support is usually really quick and helpful to get problems solved.

The reporting functions are time consuming to set up but most reports can be built to suit your needs and work great after the initial build.

I've worked with Blackbaud's Financial Edge for over 2 decades now (even back when it was called Accounting for Nonprofits), and it's the best for nonprofit accounting. Its chart of accounts can be changed at any point to accommodate as many segments as you need (I have worked with as many as 4 segments), and reporting of any kind is easily accomplished with the variety of accessible reports and queries. A lot of journal entries that you'd need to create in other software packages are easily handled through invoice entry in accounts payable, at the time of invoice entry, through miscellaneous distributions. Customer service is excellent as well.

The annual support for customer service is a bit pricey, and designed to keep you on the hook forever (if you don't pay for a year, because you don't think you will need support - and after the first year or two you may not - as soon as you need support, you've got to pay a large percentage of all the years you missed). Not a con, but Blackbaud's products get a bad rep from bookkeepers who are more used to the silliness of QuickBooks than the accountant's dream that Financial Edge really is.

The integration between Altru (our sub-ledger), BB Merchant Services and FE/NXT is superb in my opinion. You have the ability to track a transaction backwards and forwards. We use the visual chart feature to create our budget in five different views - relating to the grants we are using, thereby eliminating errors in data collection by excel spreadsheet creations not getting updated. Someone mentioned that thinking about the creation of your organization and GL was a big con for them. I disagree. We came on board with expert advice from BB and created a cohesive database that allows us to close the month within two-three days. I think the effort that is put into creating a tool should be as important as the information that you hope to receive from its use.

A few spotty delays when I an running an exceptionally detailed report as you watch the Jeopardy button go around in circles.

Migration from previous version was seamless along with BB team to assist where needed. Ability to "copy previous" is very helpful. Helpful training opportunities via on-demand or BB U taught courses. BB support is usually always quick to reply & direct when needed.

Understanding parameters that need to be set (i.e. post, etc.) can be confusing. BB support does not seem to have access to your org file when issues arise...that was a bit shocking. I would think behind the scenes that would be able to access & walk through critical problems that need to be addressed. I realize it may be a data security issue but having to add a BB staff as user seems akward.

I love the fact that you can create journal entries and invoices and include that information in reports before posting them. This helps to avoid mistakes. The web view is user friendly and fairly intuitive.

The database view is archaic and not user friendly. Many functions have not yet been converted to the web view and must be done in the database view.

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).

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...

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I've been using black baud for almost 10 years, I love the ease of using the AP side. It's very easy to get from viewing a vendor, to adding a new invoice and checking for purchase orders, all in one window (with tabs).

The only thing I don't like, it seems there are updates (which is great, but sometimes complicates things). It loses the alignment on my checks pretty drastically and doesn't save the alignment for a new run. I'm not sure if there's a glitch. It does time out kind of quickly if you aren't constantly using the system.

Hello Reviewer, I appreciate you taking the time to review Financial Edge NXT! As you may know, we listen to our customers' feedback for updates - I have let our product team know about your issue with check alignment. Please let me know if you have any other issues! - Blake.Paradise@blackbaud.com

Ease of use in Query and Report Parameters

Some of the more intricate invoices can be cumbersome, but that is only for a few items that we have. I wish the Vendor integration with Raiser's Edge was more robust, but it works for us ok.

Great functionality, and able to handle everything our local non-profit organization needs it to do, including integration with the donor management side, Blackbaud Raisers Edge. An example of the good integration is that gifts recorded in Raisers Edge then can be posted over to Financial Edge, to avoid duplicate entry. Good audit trail for all transactions, with inability to change posted items.

The desktop version is being phased out with customer support and account reps strongly encouraging a move to the web based version, which is in fact more user friendly (per the demos I've seen) but is also more expensive, and it already was not cheap.

The versatility of the product was great. You are able to track data on several levels using account numbers, and several transaction codes that you are able to define yourself. Despite all of that information that was housed individually, the software also would allow you to consolidate information across multiple entities. Report writing was fairly simple as were day to day processes of entering...

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The support was not always the best. If you had an issue, sometimes the support had a difficult time understanding your issue and resolving it in a timely manner.

The software is great for allocating to multiple funding sources. We are a grant funded non-profit and need to separate shared costs, which Financial Edge does very well.

The payroll module is, by far, the worst part of Financial Edge. Short of entering each employees' time manually each day, there was no way to keep daily time records. Time was entered by the pay period manually which was very labor intensive, and we had difficulty importing time records as FE didn't offer a time keeping solution.

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.

The NXT online service is very easy to use and very flexible to our needs for reporting. The support is good, most reps are very responsive and I love Blackbaud University.

It's really expensive. And requests for customization are hard to get through. But it's overall so easy to use that we can live with the small tweaks for now.

It's web-based format is simple to use and navigate. The product is quick and responsive and their GUI does a good job at delivering content in an easy to see/read format. The chat and email support is very helpful and their response time to initial inquiries is one of the best in the business.

FENXT is a step up from the Education Edge product but it is still in its infancy. Blackbaud's development model is sound, but they need to continue to develop their current products in lieu of adding additional features. The data support team can get bogged down, causing delays of days before data can be corrected.

The system is geared towards non profits. it is very easy to use. Being able to log into the system from anywhere is a huge plus.

Third party integration is still lacking compared to most other major accounting platforms. Unless you have a tech department willing to invest time into the api it is hard to do your own in depth analytics out of the box or connect the software to other systems. If the desktop version wasn't available for those in the cloud, I am not sure how any organization could do in depth analysis without the ability to query the database. The product is still a work in process as they work on moving features from the desktop version to the cloud based system. They also do not support multiple currencies which is a big con as an international non profit.

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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.

I like most of the reporting. I also like the functionality in the database view. I really like the last invoice input view in NXT to help me keep my obligation description consistent.

NXT does not do everything I need it to and there are a lot of mouse clicks to finish a transaction, although I am seeing improvements as time goes on.

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.

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.

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.

The ability to create new customers, make deposits, and create statements is extremely easy with this software. Of course, the success of any program is dependent on the proper training

It is sometimes a little difficult to look up a payment when searching by certain criteria. Running a query on a specific set of customers can be difficult if you don't use certain filters. Despite some of the cons, I am satisfied with this product.

Software is powerful and fairly easy to use. Support is generally quick and helpful. Can do everything from payroll, to AR to AP.

Very expensive. Annual cost has gotten to the point where it almost matches what it would cost us to implement another software suite entirely.

- 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