5 Reasons Why Cloud Accounting Software is Right for Nonprofits
It is becoming more and more common to see growing nonprofits swaying off their legacy systems. As your nonprofit organization grows, you reach a point where manual, time-consuming processes drain your productivity. Not having real-time visibility into key metrics and outcomes is hindering growth. To be a good steward, you need a system that makes use of the latest technology advancements. This means a modern accounting system that not only automates and streamlines core financial management functions but supports your growth and helps provide accountability and transparency. Today, inflexible, inefficient, and outdated on-premise accounting software is rapidly being replaced by a new class of modern cloud financial management solutions.
Here’s why:
1. You only pay for what you use. Legacy financial systems place the IT cost and maintenance burden on your organization. You’ve got servers for your application, database, backup, and probably more—and you need to keep up with changing hardware, software, and operating system versions over time. That level of technology maintenance alone is a full-time IT job—not a core responsibility of nonprofit accounting professionals. By contrast, the cloud software provider runs, maintains, and upgrades the software for you on its own secure, high-performance hardware, eliminating many of your IT costs.
2. Your data is safe in the cloud. The best cloud software has security covered from all angles: physical, network, application, and data. Your information is stored in highly data centers, with 24/7/365 operations and performance monitoring, continuous backups, and disaster recovery. Controlled permissions and access, firewalls, scanning, and data encryption further protect your organization’s data.
3. It supports a mobile workforce. Staff and volunteers can access the system anytime, anywhere—and on any device. Enter your data on your laptop, see information on your iPad, and approve transactions from your mobile phone. Unlike legacy solutions that awkwardly adapt decades-old screens for browsers, cloud fund accounting software is often designed from the start to offer a modern, intuitive user experience.
4. You’re always using the latest version. With on-premises software, you have to cope with painful upgrades or suffer through the limitations of outdated versions. Cloud software is automatically updated with no business disruption and no costly upgrade projects. You get instant access to the latest version as soon as it’s available, delivering greater value and less headache for your organization.
5. You get the best of everything with integrated solutions for nonprofits. Open APIs let you utilize best-in-class apps like CRM, donor management, fundraising, and payroll. Cloud fund accounting software is built to “talk” to your other best-in-class cloud systems with automated two-way, system-to-system communication. Web services APIs eliminate the need for complex business logic, and you have the flexibility to tailor your connections to your specific workflow processes.
Cloud financial management software like Sage Intacct can help you accomplish your mission by providing you the visibility, flexibility, efficiency, automation, and integration you need to succeed. Replacing and updating your old accounting solution with a modern, best-in-class cloud solution built for a nonprofit organization can cost less than you think—while saving you time and resources.
