At STAR Company we love our charitable clients!
Big or small. Municipally focused or internationally minded. They are all doing important work in our communities.
And of all the organizations who stand to benefit from cloud accounting, charitable organizations lead the pack. Generally speaking, these organizations are “resource restricted” with less staffing, less revenue and fewer financing options than for-profit enterprise.
So how can the cloud help?
AUTOMATION:
The list of apps and services available to automate the cloud accounting process is long. From document collection, AR management, bill payment and every other task in between, it is possible to build out an accounting ecosystem that matches the needs of your particular organization. Rather than buying a big desktop accounting program like QuickBooks or Sage, you are able to develop a system based on organizational model, size and internal support. The automation of the accounting system or integrated apps reduces the “people power” required to keep your financial statements current.
COLLABORATION:
Every executive director needs to report to their board of directors, and often that board of directors is located across multiple locations. Cloud accounting allows for sharing and review without everyone being in the same location. Collaboration and transparency are encouraged through shared access and work audit trails.
CONSOLIDATED WORKFLOW:
Even in the smallest of organizations, it’s possible for work to be duplicated to a large degree. At one organization we worked with, a staff member would receive a donation cheque in the mail, photocopy and deposit the cheque, and pass the photocopy to the fundraising coordinator and the bookkeeper. The fundraising coordinator entered the cheque and contact information into their donor tracking system. The bookkeeper also entered the donation into the accounting system. One donation, three points of contact, three workflows.
With integration between your accounting system and non-profit management system (take a look at Keela for example) you can reduce the number of people who have to “handle” the money, but still share the relevant information across the team. Money can be received online, associated to the donor name in your contact management system for fundraising tracking and pushed automatically to your accounting program. That’s how easy it should be!
Any duplication or extra effort costs an organization money, either in staff salaries or volunteer hours. Through automation, collaboration and consolidated workflow, a cloud accounting workflow can help keeps these costs down.
If you are interested in exploring how cloud accounting can improve the flow of your organization give us a shout. We’d be thrilled to speak with you.
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