Speaker 1: As a nonprofit organization, I know you have a lot on your plate and managing finances absolutely doesn't have to be one of those stressful things. So I want you to know that having the right accounting software can absolutely impact you in really two key ways. The first way is that financial records are easier to maintain and more accurate when you're using a solid accounting software. And the second thing is really more importantly, your financial reporting. So we want financial reports that will help guide the financial decisions. Or maybe you could say we want financial reports that help us not just look back in the rearview mirror, but also be able to see on the horizon of opportunities, the decisions that we need to make and the finances that support those decisions. I'm Teresa Clark, and I'm a CPA with over 25 years worth of experience helping nonprofits and 501c3 organizations. I worked inside the organization as a CFO, and I've also worked outside the organizations as an external auditor. So my mission is to help nonprofits answer money questions so that they can achieve financial strength. I want to see nonprofits accomplish their mission and not be held back by money. So you can think of me as a strategic partner. You can learn more about me and see more about what I have to offer on my website, Teresa Clark.com. I have a little comparison today that I'd like to share with you. This is a little bit about just a comparison of QuickBooks to some other accounting softwares and just some feature things that I'd like to share with you. So here's a quick little just highlight of the kind of starter accounting software decisions and then the growth level. So if we're looking at a starter package, which I'm talking about today, QuickBooks, these softwares typically they do something really well in that they're plug and play and they go. That's really the one thing. And the other thing is their cost. So QuickBooks is a great low cost plug and play built in, get it going very much can make it easy to entry. Well, there are a few things that it doesn't offer. So I want to share with you a little bit about as you're moving as a nonprofit to the growth, you know, through growth and into meeting a new accounting software. A couple of, you know, examples I've used in the past are Blackbaud's Financial Edge and then the MIP Fund Accounting Software, several others on the market not endorsing any products that I just, you know, I have experience with both of those. So that's to say the thing about those softwares is that now you get to a place where your nonprofit financial reporting is built in. So QuickBooks, you have to do a workaround. I've posted another video about one of the workarounds I use. But when you move to that growth standpoint and you've got a, you know, a better, more robust, really nonprofit software, that nonprofit reporting is built in and makes those decision making tools much more at your fingertips, even including dashboards and financial analytics that those tools can start to build in for you. The other thing is that they also provide an audit trail. So QuickBooks, one of the things I do not like about it as a CPA who has absolutely worked as an auditor, is that you can change historical records and you can change anything you want. I recently had a situation where a bank account syncing happened, got out of sync and when we re-synced it, it duplicated transactions for a long period of time. We had to go back through and that accounting period wasn't closed. So we had to go back and detect which records went in and get them back out. So I don't like that QuickBooks doesn't have an audit trail. Where's these other tools? They do. They start to track everything that's happening in the financial records and allows things, you know, counting periods to be closed and entries to be monitored and kept from being, you know, put in the wrong period at that point that you've already done financial reports. A couple other things. They have a great, these other tools have really good accounts payable sub ledgers. They also have opportunities for donor solutions that can be integrated. So a lot of times nonprofits have a separate donor management tool where all their donations go into and then they double enter that into their accounting records. Well, these other growth kind of level platforms, they integrate those two records. They communicate so that you know that everything happening, your donation software is happening in your financial records and that the coding of any restrictions or categories are also kept well. And then query capability. So the ability, like we're talking about, we want to move our data from just data entry and done to use the information to forward our decision making. And so these other softwares get to a place really where there's incredible capabilities. So those are some of the reasons that I think you get to a point where, yeah, QuickBooks is great. I mean, hear me out. Great. Look at that cost. Starter package last time I checked of a QuickBooks software, I mean, two thousand dollars a year. That's phenomenal. It's plug and play. It's easy to use. It gets the job done. I'm a huge fan. It does work great. You just hit a point where you might want to start moving on to and needing to think about a different level of accounting software. And those ones I mentioned, they're at least going to start with four thousand, depending on the size of your organization. Pricing model changes, but they start to get expensive fast. So you can't just run out and start there. Sometimes you've got to start with what you have. OK, so that's a little bit about the features that I wanted to share. And then the last component I really want to talk about is that cost management. You need to manage your costs and they'll come a point where you're probably going to need to think about an advanced accounting software where but it's just at the point where, you know, it's going to make it worth it for you to increase your cost for the reward that you're going to get out. OK, lastly, I want to make a quick note, and that's security. When you're dealing with financial information, security has to be a top concern. And so you want to make sure when you're looking at softwares that you understand what they're doing to encrypt your data and to create secure logon environments. And then kind of a related note, what are their disaster recovery or backup plans and what happens in an unexpected event? So those are some things to keep in mind. I also want to say, you know, finding the right accounting software really will help you to focus on your mission and allow you to make a greater impact to do the things that you're called and positioned to do. Oh, I have a resource on my website. If this topic is of interest to you, you're probably also trying to figure out how to manage all of the financial tasks each month and week and year. So I have a free checklist of financial tasks that I wanted to share with you. It's available on my website up at the home toolbar, or you can go to TeresaClark.com forward slash checklist. And I hope that that will be a helpful tool for you.