Complete the simple form to the right, and one of our professional consultants will be in touch. You’ll get free consultation with no obligation to purchase anything.
If forms aren’t your thing, just give us a call at
888-920-2784.
We will contact you within 2 business days.
While developing budgets is challenging for any organization, Not for Profits (NFPs) face special challenges such as allocating funds donated for specific purposes, aligning spending with stated missions and providing for unforeseen events that affect their mission. Compounding the problem is the fact that many frugal NFPs work with outdated accounting systems that don’t provide easy access to data. Requiring complex spreadsheets and manual processes, these budget processes hide the true cost of planning.
Struggles with Aging, Customized Accounting Systems
The success of any NFP is in large part due to strong fiscal management, ensuring that every dollar possible be spent to support the organization’s mission. Many NFPs are still using operating systems and accounting software where even the simplest changes require customized solutions. These organizations have to “make do” with the system that provides fragmented information with no consolidated view of finances.
At budget time, when it’s time to plan and allocate for the coming year, the accounting staff has to manually compile the information to support critical decisions. Since data is difficult to extract, the burden of reporting fulfillment and delivery often falls to the IT department. While the organization may believe that they are saving money by postponing investments in new technology, the cost of employee efficiency and morale soars.
Automated Budgeting Will Save Money
NFPs don’t have to be burdened by these painful processes. There are collaborative tools available today that distribute, enter, manage and integrate budget data into accounting systems that leverage current technology. The cost of entry for accounting solutions is often far less than the yearly maintenance cost for maintaining legacy systems, such as an AS/400 system. Leveraging flexible data servers, like Microsoft SQL, allows the organization to share data across departments and create reports easily.
When the Budget administrator can initiate a new budget and create all departmental budget forms with Prior Year Actual, Current Year Actual + Forecast, and Proposed Budget Input in a matter of minutes, the organization time savings is tremendous. With no involvement needed from the IT team, they can focus on serving the mission of the organization. Finance teams can focus on analysis of current revenue and spending to identify areas of opportunity and cost savings.
While the cost of implementing a new ERP system may worry the NFPs Board of Directors, the true cost of not upgrading to more efficient technology is far more damaging. Maturing technologies and software delivered through the cloud are reducing the risks and costs of implementing new systems. The best path to strong fiscal management for NFPs is to uncover hidden costs and chart the path to improvement. Management should always be looking for better, faster and more efficient ways to run the organization. Automating budget development is one way to accomplish this.
Posted by Cathy Fregelette on Tue - Jul 20, 2010 at 10:21 am EDT
Total of 0 comments.
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
