CPA Practice Advisor

JUL 2017

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

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JULY 2017 ■ www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 9 NONPROFIT ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE: REVIEW www.abila.com Abila MIP Fund Accounting is best suited for small to mid-sized nonprofit organiza- tions as well as government agencies that actively manage multiple funds. Cloud-based, MIP Fund Accounting is hosted on Abila's secure cloud. A mobile app is also available, so users can access the system from a smart phone or tablet. A locally installed version of the product is also available for those that prefer. The latest version of MIP Fund Accounting offers numerous software enhancements, including performance improvements in the application, as well as improved email reporting capability. Read the full review for this product online at: www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/ 12347683 www.accufund.com AccuFund for Nonprofits is well suited for the mid-sized nonprofit organization or government entity. Scalable, AccuFund offers a variety of deployment options that can suit just about any user's needs, including a traditional desktop installation, an online product, and two cloud-based versions of the product: Any- where, designed for smaller nonprofits, and Anywhere Complete, which offer complete product functionality. AccuFund offers a comprehensive GL structure, with a 255 character alpha- numeric structure that is completely customizable. The structure supports up to 99 segments within the 255 characters, with users able to create segments of any length when setting up the application. Users can also opt to use the default chart of accounts if desired. AccuFund easily handles multiple transaction types, including grant and project budget entries, budget revisions, allocations, encumbrances, memo entries and closing entries. Read the full review for this product online at: www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/ 12347676 Abila MIP Fund Accounting AccuFund for Nonprofits 5 2017 OVERALL RATING 5 2017 OVERALL RATING Read all reviews for NONPROFIT ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE online at: www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/12345902 AccuFund Helps Alaskan Nonprofit Make Dreams Come True T he Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska turned to AccuFund to help them meet their mis- sion, and it has helped them even more by improving the organization's efficiency and accuracy, and giving remote access to vital staff, even those in a location like ... W hen most Americans think of Alaska, they think of petroleum and vast landscapes, of oil workers and hearty fishermen, of glaciers and Mount Denali (McKinley), of a strong a vibrant people. ese are only part of Alaska's treasures. Twice the size of Texas and larger than all but 18 of the world's nations, the state is, of course, really big , and has a climate and limited infrastructure that can be a challenge to any organization, especially one that thousands of youth in the state rely on. Such is the challenge for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska (www.bgcalaska.org), a nonprofit that offers programs in more than 30 communities in the state, giving kids safe places to learn and grow. A few years ago, Charloe E. Dennis, the CFO of the Boys and Girls Clubs, turned to AccuFund to help improve their financial and resource management. Having been associated with the nonprofit since about 1980 when her own children were involved in youth activities, Charloe joined as a staff member in 1997. She says that AccuFund helps them achieve their core mission of providing fun, safe and educational activities to more than 10,000 kids per day and 50,000 to 60,000 additional children who participate in non-daily activities. Services and activities include licensed childcare and a variety of aer-school programs and athletic leagues, including soccer, football, karate, basketball and aikido. With as much as 1,200 miles between locations, man- aging the organization's various resources, including the clubhouses they use as in-kind donations, would be difficult if their management team didn't have resources that were flexible enough to give them strong financial and managerial oversight. e organization has about 160 full and part-time staff across the state, along with hundreds of volunteers. In 2016, they saw revenue of $10.4 million, including in-kind facilities donations, investment income and more than $7 million in grants and cash donations. In addition to these programs, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska also organizes several annual fundraising events. Charloe and her team switched to AccuFund about five years ago. e nonprofit accounting management soware has core accounting modules for GL, budgeting , AP, reconcili- ation, reporting and dashboards. e group also uses several additional AccuFund modules, including HR, payroll, remote access portals, purchasing , grants management and invoicing. AccuFund also offers accounting soware for government entities, endowments and fundraising. She says the most valuable modules for them are the grant management system, which allows tracking of funds by federal, state and private grants, as well as HR, AP and payroll, and the highly customizable reporting functions that let her and her staff drill down into specific transactional details and main- tain strong controls, include user access rights and security. "I really like the reporting functions, like the classifications tool and cross-year reporting , and the ability to pull informa- tion out into PDF or Excel whenever we need to." Charloe noted that the system they used before switching to AccuFund was falling behind in its ability to handle complex issues. "It also wasn't user friendly, and had limited remote ac- cess options," she says. "But AccuFund has been great from the first day." A local reseller helped them with initial installation and data conversion, but since then, the organization uses the support staff at AccuFund, and says that their primary support contact Jonas always comes through for them. e Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska turned to AccuFund to help them meet their mission, and it has helped them even more by improving the organization's efficiency and accuracy, and giving remote access to vital staff, even those in a location like Selawick, Alaska, that is so remote it "might take three plans and a dog sled" to get to in person. Read the 2017 review of AccuFund at www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/12347676

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