Whether your nonprofit is a foundation, public charity, fraternal society, social advocacy group, professional trade organization, or another entity with a mission to serve, your community depends on you. You’re dedicated to ensuring long-term success, and you depend on your people—employees, volunteers, and donors—as well as your administrative and IT infrastructures to keep the wheels in motion. But you know that for long-term growth, you need to make a strategic commitment to the future. That means bringing your finance and accounting management systems up to speed with the latest technology to support process and cost optimization, executive decision-making, regulatory compliance, and even stakeholder communications. And today, it’s a competitive necessity. Funding dollars can be spent almost anywhere, but to deliver on your mission, you need to secure them—and a solid financial management system to drive and inform your efforts. Read on to learn how today’s cloud-based financial management solutions are helping nonprofit organizations solve their biggest challenges and take their missions to the next level.

1. WHITEPAPER
Nonprofits:
Bringing Finance and Accounting Management
into the Cloud—and into the Future

2. 1 NONPROFITS: BRINGING FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING MANAGEMENT INTO THE CLOUD—AND INTO THE FUTURE
Nonprofits:
Bringing Finance and Accounting Management into
the Cloud—and into the Future
Whetheryournonprofitisafoundation,publiccharity,fraternalsociety,socialadvocacy
group,professionaltradeorganization,oranotherentitywitha mission to serve, your
community depends on you. You’re dedicated to ensuring long-term success, and
you depend on your people—employees, volunteers, and donors—as well as your
administrative and IT infrastructures to keep the wheels in motion.
But you know that for long-term growth, you need to make a strategic commitment to
the future. That means bringing your finance and accounting management systems up
to speed with the latest technology to support process and cost optimization, executive
decision-making, regulatory compliance, and even stakeholder communications. And
today, it’s a competitive necessity. Funding dollars can be spent almost anywhere, but
to deliver on your mission, you need to secure them—and a solid financial management
system to drive and inform your efforts.
Read on to learn how today’s cloud-based financial management solutions are helping
nonprofit organizations solve their biggest challenges and take their missions to the
next level.
Financial and Accounting Challenges
Facing Nonprofits Today
Nonprofits grapple with a number of challenges in their day-to-day financial
and accounting administration. “Lean and mean” budgets, competition for
funding dollars, stakeholder scrutiny, demand for more services…sticking to
the mission. There are inherent complexities that keep getting more complex
as the organization grows, and none of them stand a chance of getting any
simpler if the underlying financial management system is out of date.
With this in mind, consider these key challenges that resonate with many
finance and accounting professionals in the nonprofit sector.
“I would say that many
nonprofits don’t spend
enough on IT. So often
nonprofit leaders are
using outdated technology
and systems, or worse,
not gathering data at all
because they simply don’t
have the funds. Nonprofits
need to spend more, not
less, on IT.”
Nell Edgington,
President, Social Velocity

3. 2 NONPROFITS: BRINGING FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING MANAGEMENT INTO THE CLOUD—AND INTO THE FUTURE
Need to Diversify Funding Sources
Sustainable funding is on the mind of every nonprofit professional. Where can the
organization get new funding, and how can funding from existing sources be increased?
The nonprofit “marketplace” is competitive, and potential donors have almost endless
options for where to put their money. While searching for new opportunities for funding,
nonprofit organizations need to stay on top of overhead costs and continue operating
economically—not such a simple task when more and more marketing dollars are needed
to support the fundraising initiative. If operational inefficiencies exist in the finance and
accounting departments, money may be slipping through the cracks.
The nonprofit funding revenue dollar split:
Need for “Know and Show” Reporting
Nonprofits have an increasing need for more sophisticated measuring and reporting to
demonstrate accountability and transparency amongst their constituents. From donors
to employees to the community, there are multiple audiences looking for information
about an organization’s financial success as well as the outcomes of individual programs.
And they are expecting this information to be ever more timely, detailed, and
relevant—depending on their role in the big picture.
For example, donors want to know where their dollars are going, and they often place
stipulations on fund performance, making efficient reporting on outcomes that much
more critical to the future of the nonprofit’s mission. Without the right technology in
place, the tools for effective measuring and reporting are not easy to come by.
Before making a donation, donors should ask:
• Do you care about the cause or the mission that the nonprofit is addressing?
• Does the information you have give you confidence that the nonprofit is effective
in their work?
• Do you believe that the people leading the nonprofit are capable and trustworthy?
Source: National Council of Nonprofits
82.5%of
all reporting
public charities
had annual
revenue of
under one
million dollars.
Source: National
Council of Nonprofits
Sources: The Nonprofit Sector in Brief, National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2015 (2013 data); Giving USA 2014 (2013 data)

4. 3 NONPROFITS: BRINGING FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING MANAGEMENT INTO THE CLOUD—AND INTO THE FUTURE
Need to Scale for More Impact and Effectiveness
Many nonprofit organizations are strategically partnering with other organizations to increase their
funding base and better serve their communities. This growth leads to complexities for their finance
and accounting teams, who now have to manage multiple entities and a range of additional reporting
requirements. With complexities come the potential for errors and omissions, not to mention
administrative delays, which only tend to get worse over time as the nonprofit continues to grow.
There comes a point at which it’s impossible to expand programs due to the limitations of the
underlying financial management framework—until the systems and processes are upgraded for
automation and a wider breadth of functionality.
In 2015
• 76% of nonprofits reported an increase in demand for services—the 7th year that a majority
have reported increases.
• 52% couldn’t meet demand—the third year in a row that more than half of nonprofits couldn’t
meet demand.
• Of those who reported that they could not meet demand, 71% said that client needs go unmet
when they can’t provide services.
Source: Nonprofit Finance Fund
Need to Automate Operations
Nonprofit employees commonly become accustomed to working within error-prone manual
processes and unwieldy spreadsheets, making due with the often burdensome technology at-hand.
What once worked for the organization is no longer effective—so the “old way” of working is slowing
everyone down.
When a nonprofit is able to automate key processes like revenue recognition, reporting, month-end
close, consolidations and multi-entity management, the entire organization is better positioned to
think—act—strategically for the long-term. Rather than holding back the organization’s mission, the
areas of finance and accounting are finally able to become a driving force behind growth.
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