Intacct targets non profits

Sage Intacct has announced that it is targeting nonprofit organizations with Sage Intacct Nonprofit Financial Board Book. The new solution was developed with GuideStar, a leading information service for US non profit companies. Sage Intacct is continuing its approach of partnering with, or gaining the support for, its products with leading industry organisations. Its financial software is the preferred provider of financial applications by the AICPA. This latest announcement places it firmly in the minds of nonprofits through the relationship with GuideStar.

Sage Intacct Nonprofit Financial Board Book

GuideStar themselves offer several information services to nonprofits. It has more than 7 million users working in 2.5 million nonprofit organisations. Its products include Financial SCAN which allows companies to compare their performance with peers.  It is this expertise, built up over years, that is baked into the new product. The new board book provides displays of key financial and operational metrics using real time data.

These metrics include project metrics such as revenue composition, liquidity, and unrestricted cash. These are critical for nonprofits as they need to ensure long term finance to ensure survivability. Cash flow, like most other organisations, is critical.

Nonprofits cannot afford to run out of money at critical times. Not just for the employees but also for those dependent upon them. Understanding the inflows from fundraising, one of the critical components for nonprofits, is imperative. Nonprofit leaders need to calculate and measure project funding accurately. This allows them to identify how much they need to invest in fundraising in time to meet those commitments, or to cut costs in a timely fashion.

The data used is collected from multiple sources of financial data. It comes from revenue and expenses as well as donor management, budgeting and planning and payroll. The dashboards therefore display a complete reflection of the financial health of the business.

Dan Miller, VP of Product for Sage Intacct commented: “With critical revenue, funding, and expense data at their fingertips, nonprofit finance executives have real-time insights into the health of their organization and can make the important decisions that will shape their future. GuideStar is a natural partner to work with when developing the Nonprofit Financial Board Book.”

Using a framework

GuideStar has long supported the use of reporting frameworks for non profits. It offers its own framework that organisations can utilize to create profiles within the Guidestar exchange. It is this framework that Intacct has mapped its reporting solution to. What isn’t clear from the press release though is what level of profile an Intacct customer can achieve when using its solution. It seems likely that out of the box the solution will deliver a silver level of transparency and the latter levels are more to do with impact that financial stability. However, this is important. The less time that an organization need to spend on administration of finances, the more it can dedicate to helping fulfil its mission and measure its actual success.

Adrian Bordone, VP of Strategic Partnerships at GuideStar. Commented: “Nonprofit sector leaders and practitioners know that better data can lead to better decisions and a better world. GuideStar is focused on helping organizations convert data to intelligence to strengthen mission accomplishment. These efforts were a driving factor in our decision to partner with Sage Intacct.

“We envision a nonprofit sector strong enough to tackle the great challenges of our time. The first step in that process is to ensure nonprofit organizations have the information they need to make smart decisions, build connections, and learn from each other to achieve their missions. The Sage Intacct Nonprofit Financial Board Book delivers critical insights for nonprofits and meets a timely and significant market need for better access to information.”

What does this mean

The new Nonprofit Financial Board Book is not available until early 2018. The announcement came at Sage Intaccts annual conference and it will be interesting to hear from early adopters. Sage Intacct is continuing with a level of independence from Sage following its acquisition. That is impressive.

Rob Reid, CEO is continuing to push the solution into new industries with the support of organisations that are well known in those industries. This latest partnership is a smart example of how Intacct delivers a solution with the support of an organisation that has many links in this space. What is surprising is that the ERP vendors also operating in this space have not done something similar before.

Will others take notice? They will if Intacct kicks off 2018 with significant growth in this sector. It has certainly set itself up to succeed.