The overlap between fundraising and accounting is actually quite small; the dollars raised are a tiny part of the whole development machinary and the allocation of gifts within the accounting system can be in many cases quite trivial. Of course with many nonprofit activities the simple and trivial can be made complex and cumbersome - I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be.
In our practice at Lumity we tend to look at the fundraising and accounting problems separately. General v. Fund Accounting? Not a development problem at all. Talk to your auditor and funders and look at the kind of emcumbrances and cross period reporting you need to do. If you're spending a lot of time in Excel to explain and report on restricted financial activity you have the wrong accounting software. Kevin Hite at Deltek even gave it a name: the Excel Monster.
Since you've already selected an FR package I'll assume that you have an advancement services plan that supports thedevelopment plan. What we look for are indications of volume and complexity of gifts, and volume is the least important. Significant processes are going to inlcude the extent of donor restrictions, quid pro quo issues, and the pledge write off procedures. If you're getting (as some higher ed offices do) 1,000 gifts a day, but they're all unrestricted annual fund contributions then life is pretty sweet. Conversly, if you have donors making gifts to be designated to replacing lost left mittens of needy children your gift/accounts problems just got a little bigger. Quid pro quo considerations can transform and gift into a purchase pretty quickly, and rise of Donor Advised Funds have made pledge management a nightmare for some organizations.
Once classification and work flow considerations have been established it's pretty easy to decide on the best method to get gift and payment information from RE to any number of accounting programs. RE gives you any number of export options that most accounting packages will accept. I strongly advise that you post gifts prior to export - I don't know why so many development shops decline to do this important step - and that you only import aggregate data by deposit and fund into the accounting system. RE is for gift detail, the accounting system is for summary by batch, and the the batch or deposit number is where the two foot.
The key to a sucessful accounting/fundraising software relationship is the congruance of funds and restrictions, and there are dozens of ways to solve that puzzle that allow you to pick the best of breed accounting solutions that meets all of your agency's management and accounting needs.
Good luck!
Tim Mills-Groninger
Lumity - formerly the IT Resource Center and programs of the Nonprofit
Financial Center
29 E. Madison St, ste 1005
Chicago, IL 60602-4529 ph: 312/372-4872 x132
-----original message-----
>>We are inquiring to find out what software, other than Financial
Edge, works well with Raiser's Edge? Sage? QuickBooks? MAS90? If someone could help me I would appreciate it!>>;
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